

Ask HN: How much money am I losing by sticking with Google Checkout? - dennisgorelik

On my web site the only payment option is Google Checkout.
I know that it's better to give users more payment options, but of course it would require additional development effort if I do proper integration.
That time could be spent on developing features relevant to the core business (for example "search alerts").
So I'm trying to figure out how high the priority of smooth payment integration should be?<p>Payment alternative should probably be on-site payment with something like PayPal Payments Pro as a backend.
If you have better idea -- please let me know.<p>I also considered Chargify.com and Recurly.com, but it does not look like they add much value and their services do not address the most painful part of Credit Card processing: dealing with credit card fraud.
Besides, it looks they do not support Google Checkout.<p>To put my question in context:
1) Web site: www.postjobfree.com
2) Paid service: access to resume contact information (+ some other features that are not as important at this moment).
3) Subscription: $20/month.
Google Checkout supports recurrent payments, and  as far as I know PayPal Payments Pro supports it as well.
4) Current number of subscriptions ~100 and slowly growing.
5) Current monthly traffic ~165700 visitors/month http://www.quantcast.com/postjobfree.com
These are free visitors. Only very few of them are paid users.<p>So, the question is -- is it appropriate time to work on adding another payment option or is it better to focus on other things for now?
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mgkimsal
I offer both Paypal and Google. There are people who are funny about paypal -
they use Google. Others are funny about Google - they use paypal. It covers a
very wide range of people without being too much of a hassle.

FWIW, I started with just Paypal, and noticed a bump in paid users when I
added Google checkout. I hope you notice the same bump when you go with paypal
:)

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dennisgorelik
How big was the bump? ~20%?

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mgkimsal
IIRC it was closer to 25-30% in the first month for single-issue purchases.
I'd estimate overall increased sales about 15% over the long haul - certainly
worth the initial up front dev time to add it.

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byoung2
It might be worth it to survey your users. Maybe popup a link to a quick
survey to ask them if they would prefer another payment option. I would have
gone with PayPal, personally, because you know everyone who has used eBay has
an account. Then it's an easy jump to Website Payments Pro if your users
_really_ would prefer you to have their credit card information.

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dennisgorelik
Is there any difference between amount of credit card fraud on Google Checkout
vs PayPal?

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jsyedidia
The correct spelling is "losing," not "loosing."

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dennisgorelik
Thank you. I always have problems with lose/loose choice.

