Google Checkout Becomes Part of Google Wallet

OK so today I attended the Google Wallet webinar about the intended changes to Google Checkout and its intended integration with the new Google Wallet system, so here are my thoughts on both systems and what the future holds.

Google Checkout

The first thing I will be is explain just what Google Checkout is incase you have never used it or heard of it.

Google Checkout is an online payment service provided by Google, and much like the other services available such as World Pay, Paypal, etc it simply allows you to buy good and services online by paying using a registered payment card. Just like the other services available with Google checkout not only can you buy goods and service but you can also sell goods and service via you own website.

To find out more about buying goods and services using Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com/

To find out more about selling goods and services using Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com/sell

Note - if you have a merchant account to sell your stuff you will most likely be redirected on logging in to Google Checkout to that account, to access your purchases just click the Purchase History link at the top

For more information about Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com

Google Wallet

Google Wallet is a new idea from Google to connect your cards that you hold in your wallet with both offline and online purchases, how this works is simple. After you create your Google Wallet account and have registered your credit cards to your account, you can then use your Google Wallet to make purchases, which them in turn are billed directly to your registered cards.

This means that when shopping online, where you see the Google Wallet logo (currently the showing as Google Checkout) you can use Google Wallet to make your purchase. The added benefit of Google Wallet over other providers currently is that you can also use Google Wallet to make real purchases on the high street, so anywhere you see the Google Wallet sign you can just take out your mobile phone with the Google Wallet application installed and make the purchase directly from Google Wallet. Thus allowing you in theory to leave your actual wallet at home.

So in short online Google Wallet will work just like any other online payment provider, however offline Google Wallet will work just like your real wallet, only via your mobile phone and the installed application / website.

For more information about Google Wallet visit http://wallet.google.com

Google Checkout Becomes Google Wallet

So Google has had Google Checkout around for a few years now and have decided to bring out Google Wallet, now they are taking this one step further and incorporating Google Checkout into Google Wallet, this will give you a single place online to manage your sales, purchases and any active cards you wish to use. A very well thought through idea.

What does the Google Checkout and Google Wallet Integration mean for you?

The only major change following the incorporating of Google Wallet and Google Checkout will be that you will have a single point of management for both your Google Checkout and Google Wallet accounts, in this new screen you will be able to see all purchase you have made, all sales you have made and edit or amend your chosen payment cards.

I already use Google Checkout on my website what changes will I need to make to my website?

Now if you currently use Google Checkout on your website, these changes in the short term don't really mean that much, all integration code, login urls will all continue to work as normal.

So as normal to login to your checkout merchant account go to http://checkout.google.com/sell and you will be able to continue to manage all your transcations there. However over time your will need to go to http://wallet.google.com to manage both your sales and purchases.

The only other changes you will need to make to your website will be to change the wording mentioning Google Checkout to mention Google Wallet instead, the exact wording will be issued by Google to your register email address in due course. You will not need to make any coding changes, including existing buttons provided by Google as these will be updated automatically by Google as they need to.

I have made purchases using Google Checkout what do I do now?

Now if you have made purchases using Google checkout again nothing in the short term will change, you can still go to http://checkout.google.com to check any purchases you have made, but you can now in addition go to http://wallet.google.com and you will see any purchases you have made using Google Checkout shown in your transactions screen. As you can now use the Google Wallet website to manage your credit cards and purchases, I recommend using the Google Wallet URL http://wallet.google.com from now on rather than the Google Checkout url http://checkout.google.com

The Future of Google Wallet

I have to be honest and say I think that Google Wallet is definately a step in the right direction by Google, as not only can you make online purchases but you can make offline purchases too, now whilst this may seem stupid to get out your mobile phone to make a payment on a card that is in your wallet. I think the major of this will be that if you use Google Wallet online for your website, shop or whatever and are building up funds in your online account, these funds are no longer simply for use with purchasing online, you can now make real offline purchases form this account. This puts Google at a huge advantage over other online payment providers as with Google Wallet what you make from sales online can now be used in the real world offline.

I see the offline and online link being a major selling point of Google Wallet, especially when you consider other online payment providers have payment cards you not only have to purchase in order to be able to use funds held in your online account in the offline world, but these provider have also stopped issuing these cards outside the US.

Google Wallet bank account integration

At the time of writing this you can not link Google Wallet with a bank account in order to fund your account, this is due to the speed at which Google wanted to roll out the new Wallet system and using existing card networks is faster and more secure than trying to incorporate all banking systems.

You can however still add your bank account to your wallet account in order to transfer funds out of your Google Wallet account into your real world bank account. I think that over time the ability to add funds via a bank account will be added, but for now you cant use your bank account to fund your Google Wallet account its credit cards only at least for now.

So in short good call Google, lets just hope that Google Wallet has a better uptake than Google Checkout ever did.


Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly

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