I have always used PayPal as the sole merchant on all of my web sites. I don't have any real problems with them and PayPal do the job year after year, without trauma. I have however been toying with the idea of giving my customers a choice of payment provider, by also incorporating Google Checkout.

The Google rates are virtually identical to PayPal now, so from an operational point of view there is no disadvantage to offering that choice. Looking at 'PayPal versus Google' reviews on the net though, Google doesn't particularly seem to have good press? I don't know if that is purely disgruntled customers, or some other underlying reasons?

What have been YOUR experiences with Google as a payment provider? Have you found them good, bad or indifferent. Is their customer service and payment processing equal to PayPal, better, worse?

Any input would be good, as it's difficult to get an unbiased review off mainstream net forums. All contributions to this thread are welcome.

I think paypal is still the trusted source for online merchant payments. The only advantage I can see in google is the link they have created between their merchant accounts and their webmaster tool accounts. Since most of us on the forum are webmasters then most of us probably have google accounts (for their online market research tools). Therefore, the google checkout program works well with their continued effort in promoting themselves as an all-inclusive market research tool for webmasters.

On the one hand its nice to have the integration, but on the other hand, PayPal has a great reputation.

I signed up but decided to stay with PayPal because I Google Checkout displays my home address. I don't have a brick and mortar store and don't need a PO Box.

I've been using Google Checkout for a year or so. During that time I can think of 3 or 4 customers that have had problems during the checkout process. Two customers were in Canada and were unable to complete their order. Google Checkout does support shipping internationally but SCC needs to send additional information, which it currently does not do. (I'm told by Scott this will be addressed in SCC Pro.) You, Will, would be limited to shipping within the U.K. at present.

I don't know about PayPal, but Google allows a merchant to create coupons and offer promotions (X amount off purchases of X amount). I've not utilized these features yet, though.

Google Checkout automatically issues Payouts, usually two or three days after orders are processed. Details of each Payout provide information about each product sold and the associated fees. I prefer this to PayPal's process.

Google also offers a review system, similar to Amazon or eBay. This allows me to see whether customers are satisfied or not (I'm 5 of 5 stars so far!).

Overall I'm satisfied with Google Checkout and prefer it to PayPal although I've considered offering PayPal as an option to my customers. I do think, however, the way SCC handles PayPal orders can be confusing to a customer. (After payment, the customer is returned to the View Shopping Cart page, which may cause some to wonder if their order was processed.)

I'll post more pros and cons as I think of them.

Google has one interesting difference to paypal in as much as instead of payments automatically being accepted, as paypal doese !,,, with google i have to accept payments manually myself.

As all my products are high risc, i only accept confirmed payments for orders over £40.00 and often have to refund unconfirmed paypal payments, and send out time consuming emails.

With google i can check the status of the buyer, and their system checks are visible to me, so i can make my own decision as to accepting payment or not.

BOOK PUBLISHER, you can change the return address in Paypal if you are using standard & IPN

Send it wherever you want, mine goese to a page in my main website in VSD homepages.

One thing I dislike about Google Checkout is that customers are required to create a Google account.

Jewelcraft, with regard to changing the return address after PayPal processes the payment, Scott had this to say in another thread:



This, too, could cause confusion if a customer were to view the shopping cart and see it hasn't been cleared.

With regard to payments being automatically accepted, Google authorizes the customer's credit card. When I'm about to ship a product, I then tell Google to charge the customer's card. Is that what you're referring to, Jewelcraft?

Additionally, when I ship a product, I click the Ship button which sends an email to the customer telling them their purchase has shipped. But I would assume there is a similar function in PayPal.

I don't know what type of products you sell or where you are located but, in my opinion, obtaining a PO Box is essential. The cost, too, is minimal (less than $50 per year in my area).

Two notes: first, I believe coupons will be offered in the pro cart. Second, I believe you can create a custom thank you page so as to avoid customer confusion about payment. At least, in paypal you can.

Thanks to everyone's input so far. It is much appreciated.

A return page can indeed be set up in PayPal, but if like myself you have multiple trading sites and multiple account names, its not a viable solution as you can only specify one generic return address for all of your sites. There are workarounds to that though (albeit somewhat complex). A 'success' page to which customers are returned to, rather than the cart page, is one of the things currently being looked at in the pro version. It is hoped to offer a workable solution to that problem.

Although coupons are unlikely to appear on the initial release of the pro version, they are very high up on the road map, so probably wouldn't be that far behind.

Big downside of Google Checkout (which I was using very happily up until a few months ago), is that they no longer accept Switch debit cards which in the UK market is a pain so I have now gone back to a PayPal only store.