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Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

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Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#81
post #19

Google is making the same mistakes Microsoft made. Trying to enter into every industry it can thinking it can use it's monopoly power to take over the world. Reality: Doing 20 things mediocrely is not as profitable of doing 2 things very very well. Result: 1) Constant experiments and dropped products (just like Microsoft). 2) Consumers no longer trust your services to stick around and no longer even invest in your pl…

Completely agree. I'm so disappointed in Google for having Checkout for years and not doing anything serious with it. I really wanted it to become a serious alternative to Paypal. But it's like they never even tried. And it turned out to be huge mistake for them because they could've really used Checkout accounts from day one of Android, to get people to pay for Android apps. I still believe this has been one of the…

what do you mean "could replace paypal"?

I use google checkout for pretty much everything I can't buy at amazon. It's accepted at lots and lots of places. and usually it's my deciding factor when selecting for two stores.

I don't use paypal because their system sucks if you have international credit cards and because of the lack of moral grounds they showed. never missed it (but then, i don't send money to random people, just merchants)

edit: well, used.

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#82

Google is making the same mistakes Microsoft made. Trying to enter into every industry it can thinking it can use it's monopoly power to take over the world. Reality: Doing 20 things mediocrely is not as profitable of doing 2 things very very well. Result: 1) Constant experiments and dropped products (just like Microsoft). 2) Consumers no longer trust your services to stick around and no longer even invest in your pl…

> Reality: Doing 20 things mediocrely is not as profitable of doing 2 things very very well. Reality also is that there is often a declining marginal value in additional investments in the same area once you are already doing very well in that area, and that the marginal profit from doing something else mediocre may be greater than the marginal profit from doing the existing thing a tiny bit better. And lots of Googl…

Gmail was, sort of anyway. It opened another avenue to deliver advertising, which is the center of what google does.

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#83
post #81
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. I'm so disappointed in Google for having Checkout for years and not doing anything serious with it. I really wanted it to become a serious alternative to Paypal. But it's like they never even tried. And it turned out to be huge mistake for them because they could've really used Checkout accounts from day one of Android, to get people to pay for Android apps. I still believe this has been one of the…

what do you mean "could replace paypal"? I use google checkout for pretty much everything I can't buy at amazon. It's accepted at lots and lots of places. and usually it's my deciding factor when selecting for two stores. I don't use paypal because their system sucks if you have international credit cards and because of the lack of moral grounds they showed. never missed it (but then, i don't send money to random peo…

He means it in the sense that most people stick to PayPal and your story is nothing but a blip. Google never gave enough incentive for most people to leave PayPal for Checkout. I doubt the majority of my PayPal using friends have ever heard of Checkout, let alone used it.

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#84
I don't trust Google any longer. Google (usually) brings out fantastic products only to neglect and abandon them like a bored toddler.

This wave of product discontinuations is making me extremely hesitant to use anything new Google brings out. If Google brought out Gmail today I'd sign up and explore what it's about, but I wouldn't ever give out the email address for fear that it would be snatched back with no or little notice.

I'm not going to pretend to know Google's business better than they do, but to me it appears as though they're really dropping the ball here and losing a lot of credibility and trust.

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#85

Anyone have any idea if this effectively terminates any existing recurring Google Checkout subscription payments (on November 20)? If so, that's kind of a big deal. Cutting off merchants from their revenue stream is a great way to get people really angry and could easily destroy a business.

My understanding is that merchants would need to ask their users to re-subscribe through different payment provider. It seems very unlikely that Google Checkout would allow any way of importing users' credit card information.

After such treatment I'm very unlikely to use any future Google's payment systems (such as Google Wallet).

=========

https://support.google.com/checkout/sell/answer/3098725

The ability to process recurring charges or subscriptions using the subscription beta feature will be shut down on November 20th.

=========

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#86

Google is making the same mistakes Microsoft made. Trying to enter into every industry it can thinking it can use it's monopoly power to take over the world. Reality: Doing 20 things mediocrely is not as profitable of doing 2 things very very well. Result: 1) Constant experiments and dropped products (just like Microsoft). 2) Consumers no longer trust your services to stick around and no longer even invest in your pl…

I think it's more the opposite. Google, hyped up on IPO endorphins and VC DNA went out and tried to conquer the world, despite not having a distinct advantages in the businesses it was getting into. The results have been lackluster in many cases (but not all). They probably overdid it. Good on them for realizing that and putting a bullet in some of these efforts. Many companies don't have the courage to do that.

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#87

Anyone have any idea if this effectively terminates any existing recurring Google Checkout subscription payments (on November 20)? If so, that's kind of a big deal. Cutting off merchants from their revenue stream is a great way to get people really angry and could easily destroy a business.

My understanding is that merchants would need to ask their users to re-subscribe through different payment provider. It seems very unlikely that Google Checkout would allow any way of importing users' credit card information. After such treatment I'm very unlikely to use any future Google's payment systems (such as Google Wallet). ========= https://support.google.com/checkout/sell/answer/3098725 The ability to proces…

Wow, so it _is_ true, that's the confirmation I was looking for. Really hard to believe. I knew if they did shut them off they would point to the fact it's still "beta". The subscription feature has been labeled beta since it was released in March 2009. This is sick.

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#88
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the post? > If you don't have your own payment processing, you will need to transition to a different solution within six months. To make things easier, we've partnered with Braintree, Shopify and Freshbooks to offer you discounted migration options. So you have 6 months and several options for migration.

That sentence is confusing at best. "If you don't have your own payment processing" What does that mean? I thought Google Checkout was my payment processor? Do they mean if you already have a payment processor other than Google? And if I _do_ have my own payment processing then I won't need to "transition to a different solution within six months". What does that mean, are they going to give me all the subscribers cr…

Braintree certainly does recurring billing and it's pretty common in these scenarios for the migration to happen between vendors.

https://www.braintreepayments.com/tour/recurring-billing

Braintree even helped start http://www.portabilitystandard.org/ to help standardize the migration process.

That said, Google Checkout didn't do much in the way of recurring billing. The FAQ says it never made it out of beta. The vast majority of merchants appeared to just be selling the old fashioned way.

https://support.google.com/checkout/sell/answer/63440?hl=en

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#89

Google is making the same mistakes Microsoft made. Trying to enter into every industry it can thinking it can use it's monopoly power to take over the world. Reality: Doing 20 things mediocrely is not as profitable of doing 2 things very very well. Result: 1) Constant experiments and dropped products (just like Microsoft). 2) Consumers no longer trust your services to stick around and no longer even invest in your pl…

> Google is making the same mistakes Microsoft made. Trying to enter into every industry it can thinking it can use it's monopoly power to take over the world.

I call this the Spaghetti Cannon strategy.

Load up a cannon with cash and different ideas, blow up the cash and see what sticks to the wall.

If we redrew the corporate boundaries of Google and Microsoft, we'd see them as investment firms tasked with turning a reliable long term cashflows into new reliable long term cashflows. Quasi-venture firms.

So far, Google has advertising. And that's it.

Microsoft have Windows, Office, Server & Tools and Xbox.

So in actual fact, Microsoft are proving that yeah, it sorta works. Sorta.

Re: Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

#90
At some point I thought the master plan behind Google Checkout was to tie the adword payments to actual purchases behavior. So instead of paying per click an advertisers could have paid "per purchase".

With enough sites on board Google would probably have been in quite good position in trying to figure out if the user is really going to make the purchase or not. If user is likely to purchase, then show him "pay per purchase" ads otherwise just regular "pay per click".

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