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Google get their dates wrong

Christian Yee, Product Marketing Manager for Google Checkout has posted “Checkout summer savings” on the official blog. It promises “over 50 Google Checkout stores will be offering savings of $10 off purchases of $60 or more to Checkout buyers”.

The landing page for the Checkout promotion small print says “Offers available until June 23, 2007“.

Opps, not like Google to get something like that wrong, I’d have thought they’d want to forget June 2007 after last year!

Google puts the boot into eBay

As part of eBay’s request that the ACCC approve their request to implement a PayPal only policy on eBay all interested parties were able to make submissions which the Commission would consider when forming their decision.

Following eBay’s response (and after the deadline for public submissions expired on 3nd May), one more 38 page anonymous report was submitted, which set out in detail why they considered eBay’s move to be anti-competitive.

It didn’t take too long though for one eBay user to expose the culprit, examining the hidden (but easily accessible) meta data of the document he found the phrase “ACCC Submission by Google re eBay”. The document has been replaced with an amended version with Google’s name removed.

This has to be embarrassing for Google, all the major banking institutions that made submissions did so publicly, and it looks much worse have your intentions revealed in this manner than it would do to be up front in the first place.

(Thanks go to Richard for spotting this story)

Google & PayPal: Skipping competitors

There’s this company which I adore because they’re one of the most unlikely companies you’d expect to embrace the Internet.

Topskips (yes a skip hire company) have a website, they have a blog, they even have their own online company TV channel, and back in July 2007 Topskips started to accept PayPal. The reason I like them so much is they pretty much do everything an eBay seller should be doing - website, blog, video (waves to the guys at vzaar) and online payments.

Now however the competition is hotting up in the skip payments industry - Topskips have just announced they’ll be accepting Google Checkout in addition to PayPal. That’s not something that’ll happen any time soon on eBay, but for your own website offering a choice of payment methods is one of the top ways to ensure customers don’t abandon shopping carts.

If you’ve never visited the Topskips website it’s well worth a browse. You might not be in the market for skip hire, but they could teach an awful lot of businesses just how to fully embrace the web.

Open multiple accounts, get $50,000

It’s a long time since I opened my PayPal account, but a story on Wired struck a chord with me today.

A Californian man has apparently made $50,000 from opening online accounts. Like PayPal, many companies verifiy your identity (or at least your bank account) by making one or two small deposits, and then asking you to confirm the random amounts you received.

Normally this is pennies, but this gentleman opened some 58,000 accounts netting a small fortune (plus another $8,225.29 from Google Checkout which he’s not yet been prosecuted for). He said he “needed the money to pay off debts and stated that this was one way to earn money”.

Now back to my PayPal account - when I first set up my account rather than deposits PayPal used to make a small charge on your credit card, which was credited to your PayPal account when you made your first purchase. The first time I attempted this the charge failed and some time later I used a second card to verify my account. When I made a payment PayPal true to their word refunded the charges to my account, but for BOTH credit cards on that was charged and one that wasn’t.

So PayPal I’m ‘fessing up - I owe you £1.37 from years ago.

Google Checkout’s UK traffic passes PayPal’s

Google Checkout has seen more traffic this December than PayPal has, according to a director of web traffic measuring firm Hitwise. PayPal’s traffic was way ahead of Checkout’s for October and November, but it has fallen back to just slightly lower from 6th December. Also interesting are the sources of traffic for each site: almost 60% of PayPal’s visitors still come from eBay, and just 2.2% from non-auction shopping and classified sites. Compare that with Google Checkout’s 45.3%, and it would seem that Google’s promotions - free processing for merchants, and money off for buyers - have proved attractive this year, just as they did last year.

However, what might be more significant is what visitors do *after* visiting the payment site. Robin Goad says “visits do not always mean purchases. … While I can’t provide abandonment data, it is likely that people visiting another retail site after either Paypal or Google Checkout may have not completed their purchase. In other words, a lot of downstream traffic to our Shopping and Classifieds category could be used as a proxy for abandonment rates.” On that basis, GC’s 43% downstream to shopping and classifieds sites seems unfavourable in comparison to PP’s 28%: are buyers just checking out Checkout, rather than actually using it?

If you’re a merchant offering both PayPal and Google Checkout, how are sales working out for you? Which system do your buyers prefer? - leave us a comment below.

Via WebProNews.

Time for PayPal to be charitable

Google Checkout have eased ahead of PayPal in the race to attract business. They’ve offered to waive all fees for US charities, at least until 31st December 2008.

eBay have always donated fees to charities where products are sold on the site through eBay for Charity. They match the percentage the seller donates by donating the same percentage of fees. For direct charity sellers this is 100% of fees due going to the benefitting charity. PayPal however don’t donate fees, or even waive fees for processing for charities.

Google have suddenly made their service attractive to well over one million US non-profit organisations. It’s yet to be seen if they’ll introduce a similar measure for registered charities in the UK. It’s time for PayPal to play catch up!

ChannelAdvisor Insite Conference booking now open

The events will focus on areas key to expanding your business both on and off eBay. The agenda covers topics such as eBay, Amazon Seller Central, Google Checkout, PayPal Express Checkout, Paid Search Marketing and Shopping Comparison. There’s time for networking over lunch and a further networking reception (with drinks) in the evening.

ChannelAdvisor hold many events throughout the course of the year including online seminars and the annual Catalyst Conference. The Insite Conferences are designed for small groups to encourage networking and group discussions. Spread around the country in Bristol, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Dublin there’ll be an event near you.

I attended Insite last year and it was a throughly productive day. All too often it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day running of your business. It’s well worth setting aside just one day this year to review the industry and how you can move your business forward. If there’s just one event that you attend this year’s Insite would be a great choice to make a positive impact on your business.

PayPal cuddles up to Facebook

PayPal are running a developers competition for Facebook applications (sadly only open to US residents). Naturally the application has to use PayPal but it’s a great way for PayPal to make inroads into the 30 million odd Facebook users.

Judging will be based on:

• Creativity: Is the application engaging and innovative? - 30%
• Quality: Does the application work intuitively and as expected? - 30%
• Functionality: Is the application useful? Does it fulfill customer’s needs? - 40%

It will be interesting to see what the developers come up with, monitising Facebook for users will only make it more attractive, and of course if applications are developed first for PayPal it’s shutting another door in the face of Google Checkout. They’ll be playing catchup once again.

There’s one oddity with this competition, there are two “First Prizes” of $5,000, and four “Second Prizes” of $2,500. There’s also a “Grand Prize” of $10,000, but come on…… two first prizes?

Meg says eBay may eventually use Google Checkout

In a Bloomberg TV interview aired on Independence day (Sounds a bit like Freedom!) Meg Whitman revealed that eBay may eventually use Google Checkout if more people are satisfied with the service!

Checkout aficionados shouldn’t take too much hope of that being any time soon however. The comment was made while discussing a recent survey which found only 14 percent of Google Checkout users happy with it. Saying it may be allowed on eBay if user satisfaction increases sounds more like a dig at Checkout than a forward looking statement.

Meg points out the figure for PayPal users happy with the service was over double that of Checkout. PayPal has also increased it’s lead over Checkout since Christmas sales and Meg likened it to “a huge home run,” saying “It’s the most innovative Web payment product out there and has done really well, even in the face of a little bit of a challenge from Google.”

So what should we make of her comment that eBay may use Checkout? I think the operative word is *may*. I’m pretty sure eBay have no compelling reason to allow it, in fact it only benefits sellers and will certainly cost PayPal revenue. For buyers eBay and PayPal are synonymous and very few that open an eBay account don’t go on to open a PayPal account (at least in established territories). Don’t expect Checkout on eBay this year.

Throwing eBay’s rattle out of Google’s pram

So, the Google story. Because this all kicked off while I was slogging from Brittany to Boston via Gatwick and Minnesota (and we’ll save that horror story for another post), I missed much of the to and fro. However, the BBC itself is now covering the story, which goes something like this. Google advertised a “let freedom ring” party in Boston, to coincide with the keynote speech last night. eBay pulled all their advertising from Google: they’re Google’s biggest customer, spending an estimated US$25million a year on keywords.

eBay’s spokesman Hani Durzy said that this was “part of an ongoing experiment to look at how we market across all media channels”, though he admitted that eBay were disappointed in the Google party plans: “we don’t view that kind of activity as an appropriate activity for one partner to do to another.”

Though the party was, in the end, cancelled, eBay’s paid ads are (at time of writing) still missing from Google. Normally affiliates would step into the breach, but as of June 1st, eBay.com affiliates were no longer allowed to use paid search advertising. While eBay and Google have their hissy fits, this is costing sellers visibility, and more importantly, money.

Google Checkout doesn’t quite

The Register report yet more teething troubles for Google Checkout in the UK. After the fiasco of the original launch, with sellers having to fax documentation and a huge question mark over who was actually eligible to participate, it now seems that things aren’t running quite smoothly for either buyers or sellers. This buyer seemed to sum up the situation nicely: “However, somehow I doubt I’ll still be using Google Checkout once they stop knocking £10 off every bill!” And we’ve heard that before too.

Many thanks to Dan for the link.

Google Checkout WAP enabled

Google Checkout has enabled mobile payments using WAP. Now any retailers in the UK or US that accept Checkout and have WAP enabed sites can accept payments from customers from mobile phones.

PayPal have supported payments via mobile phone (cell phone for those in the US ;-)) for some time. However their offering is more appealing for many applications as it works via SMS text messages. With PayPal you don’t need to be browsing a WAP enabled website to make a payment, you simply text the amount you wish to pay to the phone number of the recipient. PayPal already had a WAP interface when they introduced their text message payment service.

It’s good to see Checkout adding more sophisticated services, but they’re still very much playing a game of catchup.

PayPal becomes a Bank, no longer under FSA

PayPal announced this morning they are to become a bank headquartered in Luxembourg known as PayPal Europe SÃ rl & Cie, SCA (PayPal Luxembourg). All European PayPal accounts will be transferred to the new Bank on 2nd July.

The Bank of PayPal should gain a huge boost in momentum against their nearest competitors which in the UK are Nochex and more recently Google Checkout. Nochex has remained a smaller player, although popular - Checkout is merely a “Checkout flow for existing payment methods”. The irony is in the near future it could be possible to click through Google Checkout with your PayPal bank card - it’s already possible to use Google Checkout with your PayPal credit card (although it’s an affiliate card though GE Capital Bank Limited). Many larger retailers don’t accept PayPal services but the change from an electronic money issuer to a banking institution could make them a more attractive proposition.

The change also means that they’ll no longer be regulated by the FSA but will be regulated as a bank by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the Luxembourg equivalent of the FSA.

It remains to be seen which services will be affected by the changes. The despised ten day clearing time for eCheques should clear more promptly. PayPal Website Payments Pro (very similar to a full merchant account) may become more attractive to large retailers. PayPal will also have more flexibility to introduce new features such as debit cards allowing you to spend funds held in your PayPal account.

You can find more information on the PayPal website.

Checkout Google Adwords

A question was asked in the TameBay forum “Are paypal afraid of google checkout?” This led me to thinking about Google’s business and just why Checkout is important to them. Many online retailers have welcomed them as an alternative to PayPal, but the truth is Google aren’t actually interested in competing.

Checkout was conceived for one reason alone - and that’s to build and protect 98% of Google’s revenue - Adwords!

Adwords allow retailers to purchase adverts triggered when a user searches Google. There are two sets of results, natural or organic results and paid for (Adwords) results. Google uses a number of algorithms to decide which retailers advert should appear at the top of the paid results, combining how much they’re paying with how many users click on and how relevant their advert is. The delightful part of adwords is that if no one clicks on your advert there is nothing to pay, you only pay when a prospective buyer is interested enough to click on your advert.

So how does that relate to Checkout? Read more

PayPal Expands to 190 Markets Worldwide

PayPal today announced that customers in 87 new markets can send money online with PayPal. In addition, customers using PayPal.com will now be able to view the site in Spanish, French and simplified Chinese.

Customers using PayPal.com can now also view the site in Spanish, French and simplified Chinese as well as US English. The addition of these new languages will enable Spanish, French and Chinese-speaking PayPal users to shop online securely and simply in the language they prefer. Customers using an Internet browser in any of these three languages will automatically be offered to view PayPal.com in one of these languages when they first visit the site.

With Google Checkout blowing millions on incentives to attract business there’s a lot of catching up to support retailers who want to appeal to a worldwide customer base. PayPal with Website Payments Pro now covers a vast geographic area and one Checkout will take years to compete with.
Read more

Google Checkout £10 for £30 not available to all

Google have made much of their Checkout promotions where they’re basically buying market share. Spend £30 and Google will bung you a tenner so you’ll only pay £20 - a great deal for buyers and retailers with the promotion in place have reported great results. Rather than place a large order buyers are making multiple purchases of just over the £30 limit. Google have no limit on the number of transactions you can make with a particular retailer, or the number of £10s you can receive back. The more you spend the more you get.

However it’s not all great for retailers struggling to attract custom and jump through the checkout hoops. On the Checkout website it states that “merchant sites are selected for inclusion in promotions based on Google Checkout sales and the overall Google Checkout experience they offer“. Signing up for a Checkout account isn’t the universal panacea for sales rolling through the door from delighted customers with an unlimited £10 discount card.

Unless you’re invited to participate (or my take is “Unless Google think you’re going to get them enough new signups to checkout”) you’ll be hard pressed to fulfil all the criteria, which are so nebulous there is no sure way to tell if you’ll qualify or not anyway. Below is a typical email being sent out to merchants requesting more information on how to promote checkout with their promotion:

Transparency and straight answers about the promotion are what retailers are calling for. If anyone has more information on how to ensure a retailer qualifies for the checkout promotions please add a comment below.

An Interview with Scot Wingo

Last week I attended the ChannelAdvisor Catalyst Conference and then eBay University on the Saturday. I’ll be posting my thoughts on both over the course of this week.

At Catalyst I had the opportunity to interview Scot Wingo, President and CEO of ChannelAdvisor and he shared his thoughts with me on many topics of interest to eBay traders and ecommerce in general. Timing for our interview couldn’t have been better - eBay released their Q1 results the night before. Scot’s take is that the results were better than expected across the board, with only the growth in active users and number of listings lagging. However if eBay can produce higher profits on fewer listings either selling prices are up or a higher percentage of listings are finding buyers - either (or both) should please sellers. With growth Internationally at 38% and within the US at 18% eBay.com continues to lag behind in it’s contribution to total revenues.
Read more

Paypal, Yahoo stand together against Checkout

Yahoo and Paypal are promoting merchants who advertise with Yahoo and offer Paypal’s Express Checkout with a special logo. The new Yahoo! Paypal Checkout service offers merchants free Express Checkout processing until the end of the year, and US$100 worth of advertising on Yahoo: it’s all very reminiscent of, and presumably designed to compete with, Google Checkout’s offers. The new service is part of an ongoing partnership between Paypal and Yahoo. Under an agreement struck last year, before Google had officially launched their Checkout service, Paypal provide Yahoo’s Wallet service, where users can store billing and shipping information.

Where to sign up for Google Checkout

Because we’re getting rather a lot of hits (from Google!) from people looking where to sign up for Checkout, here’s the link you’re after: http://checkout.google.com/sell.

Google Checkout the UK

Google have launched their payments service Google Checkout in the UK. The credit card payments service has been available in the US since last year, but until now was not available to buyers and sellers in Europe. Currently only US and UK merchants may register, but buyers from a number of different countries can shop.

Dubbed a “Paypal killer”, Checkout’s launch wasn’t without its problems, but an agressive marketing strategy last Christmas, no seller fees throughout 2007 and giveaways to shoppers have seen its popularity increase. UK sellers will also benefit from a fee-free service this year, as well as the standard offer of £10 of orders processed free for every £1 spent on Google advertising. We predict that UK merchants will be flocking to sign up today!

With eBay having stated that it will not allow Checkout on site, that slice of Paypal’s market seems safe. Google’s target will be smaller website owners who don’t have their own merchant accounts. Until now, there has been little choice in this marketplace: stick with Paypal, or sign up with Nochex. However, problems with customers being charged extra bank fees for using Nochex have caused many Nochex merchants to think again about the service. As Google Checkout works slightly differently to both Nochex and Paypal, faciliatating ordinary card payments, it seems that they will be safe from this extra fee. So while Checkout may not be a Paypal-killer just yet, it surely marks the beginning of the end for Nochex.

Updated to add: Or perhaps not. It seems that Google will require UK merchants to have a VAT number to be permitted to register. This seems to knock out a huge proportion of Google’s potential market to me.
Updated AGAIN to add: No, apparently that’s been dropped. Non-VAT reg. is okay.

PayPal preferred

It’s official, the latest JP Morgan Securities survey reveals that buyers prefer PayPal to Google Checkout. Whilst only 6% of those surveyed had actually used Google Checkout only one in five of these were happy in the survey. Contrast this to a massive 42% using PayPal of which almost half rated the service as “good” or “very good”.

43% of those surveyed intend to use PayPal but not Google Checkout in the future (80% had heard of PayPal) while a tiny 2.3% intend to use Google Checkout but not PayPal.

The survey shows that PayPal not only has great brand awareness, but the threat of Google has so far had very little impact on it’s business. In fact if Google weren’t constantly bombarding sellers and buyers alike with cash (either free processing or cash back for paying with the service) their market share would be even less.

Google have a long way to go before they become a mainstream method of payment, or even to be a recognised alternative player in the online payments market. Google’s $10 handouts to buyers obviously aren’t buying them many friends!

Aviation industry say PayPal wins over Google Checkout

IAG who specialise in business services for the aviation and travel industry conclude that PayPal is a better solution than Google Checkout for payment services. The crux of the matter is that regardless of PayPal fees Google insist on a buyer opening an account prior to sending a payment. They suggest that buyers have enough accounts and passwords to remember already and call Google arrogant for insisting a buyer open an account with them to make a payment to a third party.

Pointing out that while users who already have accounts will have no problem logging in and making a payment there’s a reluctance to use sites which constantly insist you open yet another account that you may never use again. IAG conclude that if you can accept both payment methods you should, but if you can only integrate one tool then PayPal is the one to use!

If we pay you enough will you sign up?

Marketworks announced that in conjunction with Google they have released twelve new standard templates for ecommerce websites. Customers can select from 12 new professionally designed storefront templates to instantly transform the look of their Google Checkout enabled storefronts. Previously, customers only had two choices for their storefronts; use a simplistic template that was obviously pre-designed or contract a designer to develop a professionally designed site. The new templates are highly customisable to match the owners own brand.

Nothing particularly surprising there, but what is amusing is to see that Marketworks are practically sucking up to Google

After Google recently approached Marketworks regarding developing a solution allowing it to extend Google Checkout to its customer base, Marketworks jumped on the opportunity. Marketworks immediately began developing a strategy for building and launching professionally-designed storefront templates that were pre-enabled with Google Checkout.

So does this mean they’d never have thought of customisable templates that were Checkout enabled if Google hadn’t contacted them? Well so much for Marketworks, a more interesting read today is “Google Checkout’s No PayPal Killer” which slates Checkout declaring “How unsurprising: Bribe people heavily, and they’ll use your service.” That pretty much sums it up, and Marketworks have fallen for it too

1200% of almost nothing is still almost nothing

“Sales via Google Checkout are up 1200% in Q4. WOW.” exclaims Scott Wingo on his blog. “They admittedly started with a small base, but it’s very interesting to see the growth presented this way. One has to wonder how long eBay’s argument for not allowing Google Checkout will hold water that it is an “unproven system”. Maybe when they overtake the Paypal transaction volume?” The big question is whether that’s likely to happen, and if it does is Checkout desirable on eBay in the first place?

Many sellers already will do almost anything to persuade buyers not to pay with PayPal - reverse surcharging (discounting for all payment methods other than PayPal) was popularised when eBay outlawed surcharging for PayPal. Nochex, Cheques, Bank Transfer, Postal Orders, Merchant Account they cry, and yet overwhelming buyers vote with their feet and continue to use PayPal whenever the opportunity arises. Sure that’s partly because it’s a couple of clicks for an integrated solution but isn’t that exactly what Google are promising? Sellers need to realise that if they start splitting payments between PayPal and Nochex, Checkout et al they’re the ones that will lose. Sellers get discounts on PayPal for transactional volume and dropping down a level because you divert funds through another payment system could be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

So what is Checkout at the end of the day? It’s certainly not a direct competitor to PayPal, it’s more akin to an e-wallet

The electronic equivalent of a wallet for e-commerce transactions. Also called an “e-wallet,” it holds credit card data and passwords for logging into Web sites. The wallet data may reside in the user’s machine or on the servers of the wallet service. When stored in the client machine, the wallet may use a digital certificate that identifies the authorized card holder. Microsoft’s Passport, Yahoo! Wallet and Gator’s eWallet are examples of digital wallets.“

If Microsoft et al failed with the digital wallet (or does anyone out there actually use it?) what makes you think Google Checkout is likely to succeed? In comparison PayPal is entrenched for eBay users and even if Checkout was allowed on the site take up by buyers is likely to be slow (consider usage of Nochex). Meanwhile PayPal continue to win merchant accounts - in the last year everything from Monster in the US and DHL, Loot, Napster, Sony, Betfair and Ladbrokes in the UK have become PayPal enabled.

Checkout is great for Google…. it helps lock adword users into the brand (or it would do if they weren’t giving Checkout away for the next year anyway), but what counts is what buyers want. On eBay they have voted almost unilaterally for PayPal eschewing alternatives like Nochex. For other sites will buyers be tempted to sign up for Checkout or will they just go ahead and enter their credit card direct into the sellers online merchant account?

PayPal winning over google

Cramer (of CNBC) thinks PayPal is still winning over Google Checkout, this despite Google giving the service free of transaction fees for the next year. In a change of position he recommends buying eBay stock as it’s undervalued.

Crammer also likes shopping.com yet another reason the group (who’s day to day operations were taken over in July by Josh Silverman back in July) is becoming more and more important to the eBay group as a whole. This is one area of eBay’s portfolio worth watching with business reportedly up this quarter by some 40% compared to last year.

PayPal success, shopping.com, a deal with Yahoo and Baidu.com along with some $3.2B in the bank have convinced the analysts that eBay is ending the year in fine shape and stocks are undervalued.

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