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Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet

googlecommerce.blogspot.com

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

#161

Post by IronSean »

ams6110 wrote: post #82
dragonwriter wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You've got it backwards. They built Gmail as a fun project to improve a product in an area they didn't specialize in, then worked the ads in after the fact to monetize when it became popular.

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

#162

Post by dragonwriter »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #150
dragonwriter wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I would posit that Google isn't doing well in search from a quality perspective, but obviously they are doing very well from a market share perspective. This just means they are ripe for disruption.

> I would posit that Google isn't doing well in search from a quality perspective, but obviously they are doing very well from a market share perspective. This just means they are ripe for disruption.

By what standard? If its just your personal subjective interpretation, it just means that someone has an opportunity to steal you away as a consumer.

If there really is a broadly-shared, unmet need among Google's current consumer base that is both technically feasible to address and easier to address in a new platform (either technically or for social -- e.g., for organizational inertia reasons) than it would be for Google to implement in their own services, then, yes, Google is ripe for disruption.

But lots of people (including people selling rival search engines sponsored by deep pockets rivals) have been saying that since shortly after Google became the dominant search engine, so unless you are going to spend the effort to either make a credible case as to the specific unmet need that supports your claim that Google is ripe for disruption (and "I would posit that Google isn't doing well in search from a quality perspective" is the polar opposite of "specific" here) or, better yet, show me the MVP of your product that not only identifies the unmet need but demonstrates the feasibility of meeting it, I don't see much substance to your position.

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

#163

Post by dragonwriter »

mehta wrote: post #147
rgbrenner wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is not accurate. Google Checkout processes payments for the merchant, and Google deposits the funds in the merchant's bank account. With the new system, Google has an API to give you the users information, but the merchant must have some way of processing the payment. So these two are not the same at all. I can tell you for my ecommerce site, I intend to drop Google Wallet altogether.. After the numerous Fro…

> Google's implementation of Checkout was flawed from the start (esp how they handled/treated merchants).. So I'm not surprised it didn't go anywhere. As you say, Google's implementation was flawed from start. Doesn't it make sense then to fix it and make things right?

> As you say, Google's implementation was flawed from start. Doesn't it make sense then to fix it and make things right?

From their perspective, that's what Wallet is.

The thing is, you seem to see Google Checkout as centrally being "credit card processing" and the implementation problem being how Google handled credit card processing.

Google, more than likely, say Google Checkout's value proposition as "enabling users to pay for goods and services using their Google Account" and the implementation problem being "it required us to be a credit card processor".

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

#164

Post by MatthewPhillips »

dragonwriter wrote: post #162
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would posit that Google isn't doing well in search from a quality perspective, but obviously they are doing very well from a market share perspective. This just means they are ripe for disruption.

> I would posit that Google isn't doing well in search from a quality perspective, but obviously they are doing very well from a market share perspective. This just means they are ripe for disruption. By what standard? If its just your personal subjective interpretation, it just means that someone has an opportunity to steal you away as a consumer. If there really is a broadly-shared, unmet need among Google's curren…

Do a search for just about any topic (like "kite sailing" or "Star Wars") and tell me how many pages until you get to a site that wasn't created by a corporation.

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

#165

Post by kitbrennan »

_Lemon_ wrote: post #7

Earlier today I received a phone call from a number in Mountain View CA. It was Google letting me know in advance that Google Checkout was to be shut down (and asking to keep the call quiet). This was, to say the least, very surprising considering I have very little correspondence with Google Checkout and was actually thinking there was a huge problem with my account. Thankfully not but this is still bad news for mys…

Hi _Lemon_

I work at GoCardless. I would love to hear your feedback about ways that you think we could improve our fraud protection!

Feel free to reply here, or give me an email (kit AT gocardless DOT com), or to call me on 020 7183 8674.

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

#166

Post by sounders »

rgbrenner wrote: post #104
greggman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, did you read the post or just the headline. Aren't they just replacing Google Checkout with Google Wallet and isn't Google Wallet better than Google Checkout? It sounds like an upgrade to me. What am I missing? Is it just a messaging problem? If they had instead said "We're renaming Google Checkout to Google Wallet. We're introducing API v2. API v1 is deprecated and will be turned off in 6 months so upgrade your…

No, that is not accurate. Google Checkout processes payments for the merchant, and Google deposits the funds in the merchant's bank account. With the new system, Google has an API to give you the users information, but the merchant must have some way of processing the payment. So these two are not the same at all. I can tell you for my ecommerce site, I intend to drop Google Wallet altogether.. After the numerous Fro…

Saying that Google Checkout is being replaced is extremely misleading to merchants. Almost all Google Checkout merchants process less than a million with Google Checkout, so it is not worth it for them to do their own credit card processing or if they are large enough, there isn't enough of a value prop to use the wallet API.

The Wallet API was announced back in November, but it seems never caught on. I remember that 1800 Flowers and Rockport were offering discounts to customers that used Buy with Wallet, but this doesn't seem very successful by the lack of top merchants that aren't adopting it (even when there is a financial incentive like when Google funded the discounts for Rockport and 1800 flowers). Yes all people that buy Android apps have a Google Wallet account, but they aren't using this account outside of the Android ecosystem.

The customer support for checkout just isn't there as well. It has always been via email and extremely slow. With Paypal if you do over 200k then you get a dedicated account manager and they always have phone support. It has always seemed like a product that they are trying to make solve a problem it isn't equipped to handle- like having Android developers setup a Google Checkout account in order to get paid. It isn't designed for developer needs but it works well enough to get by.

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

#167

Post by dragonwriter »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #164
dragonwriter wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would posit that Google isn't doing well in search from a quality perspective, but obviously they are doing very well from a market share perspective. This just means they are ripe for disruption. By what standard? If its just your personal subjective interpretation, it just means that someone has an opportunity to steal you away as a consumer. If there really is a broadly-shared, unmet need among Google's curren…

Do a search for just about any topic (like "kite sailing" or "Star Wars") and tell me how many pages until you get to a site that wasn't created by a corporation.

> Do a search for just about any topic (like "kite sailing" or "Star Wars") and tell me how many pages until you get to a site that wasn't created by a corporation.

First: That doesn't specifically identify a broadly-shared need among Google's existing user base that Google isn't meeting.

Second, when I do a search for either of those I get personal blogs and/or fan sites on the first page. So, unless your problem is that that shouldn't be the case, I think the perceived situation you were obliquely referencing isn't even accurate.

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

#168

Post by AjithAntony »

rogerbinns wrote: post #91
AjithAntony wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, they now let you upload your own epub and PDF files (up to 1,000 items), as of last week. If you enjoy Books as a distribution platform and reader for your devices, but want to buy your books elsewhere.

I've already uploaded my collection. Unfortunately they also have a 50MB limit which excludes several of the books from the Humble Bundle eBook collection.

Not sure if this would work, but it offers to let you "upload" from an existing Google Drive folder. I wonder what would happen if you added the >50MB file to google drive, and then selected it from its Drive location in the books uploader UI.

The largest files I have to test area 40MB PDF and 35MB Epub, which worked. I tried a 100MB iso renamed to pdf, but it seemed to detect the right mime type and excluded it

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

#169

Post by bdowney »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #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 lit…

>This wave of product discontinuations i

I see what you did there.

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

#170

Post by rgbrenner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #163
mehta wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google's implementation of Checkout was flawed from the start (esp how they handled/treated merchants).. So I'm not surprised it didn't go anywhere. As you say, Google's implementation was flawed from start. Doesn't it make sense then to fix it and make things right?

> As you say, Google's implementation was flawed from start. Doesn't it make sense then to fix it and make things right? From their perspective, that's what Wallet is. The thing is, you seem to see Google Checkout as centrally being "credit card processing" and the implementation problem being how Google handled credit card processing. Google, more than likely, say Google Checkout's value proposition as "enabling use…

1) There was nothing wrong with google credit card processing. 2) the value prop you just wrote was not the value prop google had for checkout. They were clear checkout was to compete with paypal.

wallet fits your value prop.. that came 5 years later

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