Google Checkout Vs PayPal

12 February 2009

I decided the other day that I wanted to look into ways of selling on my website.

As I am already signed up to a lot of Google products and have no complaints about any of them I thought I'd give Google Checkout a try.

I went through the whole setup process and then put a button on a page, however, at this point I couldn't see any options to test the checkout before making it live, so I did some Google searching.

I found an article about making the test area in sandbox.google.com/checkout so I went in and had a look around.

To test the account I first had to create a new Google account, as you can't use the same Google account to sell the product and buy it. This was a lot of hassel, but I knew that the results would be good so I carried on anyway.

I tested it all and all was fine... However... I want to be selling electronic items like eBooks and applications, and for this it needs to go back to a custom thank you page so that I can give the customer the link to download the product.

Google Checkout didn't offer this. I looked around a few websites and forums but couldn't find the answer and so I emailed Google. Here is an excerpt from there reply to me:

"Thank you for your email. I understand you'd like to redirect your buyers
to a thank you page post purchase.
Please know that Google Checkout does not provide the ability to
automatically redirect a buyer to the merchant's site after a purchase,
though this feature may be introduced at some point in the future. Please
note that the API offers a <continue-shopping-url> element that will
provide a link on the buyer receipt page. This 'continue shopping' link
will allow the buyer to return to your site should they choose to. Please
visit http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=64729
for more information about the element."

So after finding out that they couldn't do it, I turned to PayPal.

I signed up for PayPal and had a look around their very large, complicated website and just got a bit baffled!

To be able to start using the service properly I need to verify my card and so I'm waiting on my verification numbers to come thorugh... And then I will share more.

In conclusion - I'd much prefer to use Google Checkout as it's quite easy to use and not too complicated, however as they can't do what I need, I have to turn to the complicated option of PayPal.

Fingers crossed that when my account is verified it will do what I need it to do.

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