Vodafone UK Part of Google Checkout Network Now Just before the Q4 shopping season Vodafone UK opted for Google Checkout to see more visitors to their site, higher conversion rates and an increase in the return on investment for their AdWords spendings as well as helping Google’s Checkout service gain new users.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months
• Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today
• Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA

I'm just wondering when GC will arrive at Germany, rumors say 2008...

(Via Google Checkout Blog)

Labels: checkout, google, uk, vodafone

  ¶ 'Vodafone UK Part of Google Checkout Network Now' posted by eA : 12:39 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months 3 Months after their UK launch the first success stories from happy customers are available now. Ebuyer.com which offers brand name computer technology and consumer electronics through both, Google Checkout and Paypal's Express Checkout, to it's customers reports in a featured case study:

'We’ve already seen more visitors to the site, higher conversion rates and an increase in the return on investment for our AdWords spend.'

'Our customers just can’t get enough of Google Checkout! The launch promotion drove a lot of the traffic initially but we expect customers to continue to use Google Checkout because of the convenience that it offers.'

DiamondGeezer.com which offers high quality diamond jewellery online shopping including high ticket items far beyond £10.000 reports:

'Checkout has increased consumer trust in our brand and the service that we offer.'

UK stores, that accept GC include ProFilmGear (video and photo gear) partner of Channel Advisor’s ecommerce network, SportsHQ (golf equipment), iFlorist (flowers) and many other sellers in 17 categories.

eCommerce maturing in the US is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. With surpassing PayPal's Express Checkout in the US in terms of Checkout seller adoption and with the further progress of eCommerce Google is more and more tapping into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers and business model and has shown that GC is a formidable competitor to Paypal's Express Checkout.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• More on Checkout

I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany. To benefit from the initial launch promotion it's recommended to be an early adopter of GC.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, uk

  ¶ 'Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months' posted by eA : 9:55 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Promoting Google Checkout with AdSense Referrals Just discovered referrals for Google Apps and Checkout:

Google Checkout:

'When a user you refer to Google Checkout has an account in good standing and completes a transaction of at least $10 (before tax and shipping) within 90 days of sign-up, we'll credit your AdSense account with US $1.'More on Checkout

Google Apps:

'You will be credited (US $5) when someone clicks your referral and signs up for Google Apps with a domain that has not already been signed up for the service. The domain must then have one or more Google Apps email accounts in use for four consecutive weeks.' More on Productivity

Labels: advertising, checkout, google

  ¶ 'Promoting Google Checkout with AdSense Referrals' posted by eA : 4:00 PM  1 comments links to this post

  eBay back to Google Advertising When Google announced two weeks ago it would hold a Checkout party that coincided with the beginning of eBay Live!, eBay announced that they would take away all their US ad spending and they did it, but for the purpose of an experiment and treatment to find out how dependent on Google Advertising they are. The timing was just a coincidence. Via internetnews.com:

eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said 'that while eBay was pleased Google canceled the controversial "Freedom Party," the timing of its experiment was mere coincidence.'

Well, if eBay wouldn't need Google Advertising... eBay depends on the traffic from Google namly both, organic and non organic traffic, but Google does not depend on the traffic from eBay - and it's a global marketplace and I'm expecting Google to gain further market share in the search category. Via internetnews.com:

"We are now slowly turning AdWords back on, in a much more limited way than before," eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told internetnews.com in an email.

In a statement emailed to internetnews.com, Google said eBay remains a valued partner: "Over the last seven years, we have worked closely with eBay to drive customers to their site and build value for their business and the business of their sellers. We look forward to a continued partnership."

Google and eBay created the two most successful business models, search and auctions, on the Internet, but expanding into new markets led to an increasing competition in several other products and services (Rebranding into Google Product Search).

Google Base and Google Product Search compete with Craigslist, Kijiji, Shopping.com and of course eBay and the last year launched Google Checkout competes with PayPal, especially with the PayPal Express Checkout, where Google Checkout recently surpassed PayPal Express Checkout in terms of customer adoption, view interesting comments here.

More on Checkout:

• Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)
• Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!
• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Labels: advertising, checkout, ebay, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'eBay back to Google Advertising' posted by eA : 8:20 PM  0 comments links to this post

  FedEx Shipping Discount for Google Checkout Merchants Nearly a year ago (June 2006) Google Checkout launched in the US, surpassed PayPal's Express Checkout already and announced already the next step: Google Checkout and FedEx teamed up to save Google Checkout merchants money through the FedEx Advantage program:

• Up to 21% off on FedEx Express® U.S. shipping
• Up to 13% off on FedEx Express® international
• Up to 12% off on FedEx Ground® shipping
• Up to 10% off on FedEx Home Delivery® shipments

From FedEx:

'You know you can count on FedEx to deliver expertise, great service and great value for all your shipping needs, virtually anytime, anywhere. And there are no enrollment fees and no minimum shipping-volume requirements, so you can start saving quickly with the FedEx Advantage program!'

Google and eBay created the two most successful business models (Search and Auctions) on the Internet and became market leader in their respective core markets, but expanding into new markets led to an increasing overlap in products, customers, and business models.

Google tapped into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers, and business model leveraging cost-effectiveness, checkout adoption and lots of room for further expansion.

Excellent market entry, just after one year Google is the winner on the checkout front!

• Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)
• Google eBay Collision
• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, fedex, google

  ¶ 'FedEx Shipping Discount for Google Checkout Merchants' posted by eA : 11:36 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US) Checkout as a very integrated experience from initial advertising to final checkout targeting eCommerce platforms to advertise at Google both, consumers and eCommerce platforms can benefit, because it simplifies the checkout process, builds trust and tracks all orders and shipping in one place.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Recent analysis conducted by Cowen and featured by ZDNet has shown that GC has proven to be a formidable competitor to eBay's PayPal Express Checkout.

'Cowen surveyed the top 200 e-commerce Web sites and found that alternative payment platforms are catching on. Among the top e-commerce sites, Bill Me Later commanded 28 percent market share with PayPal and Google Checkout representing 26 percent and 13 percent, respectively.'

Google Checkout with 13 percent 'has surpassed PayPal Express Checkout, which was offered by 10.5 percent of the top 200 e-commerce sites,' Mr. Friedland from Cowen noted.

The major reason preventing Google Checkout from taking off is privacy concerns, but it's not really a show stopper it's more a delay.

'Negotiations between Google and the legal teams at large retailers have been protracted, resulting in delayed adoption.'

Places to shop with Google Checkout include major brands like BlueNile (diamonds), Toys R Us (toys), Starbucks (coffee), Dick's (sporting goods) partner of GSI eCommerce, a leading provider of outsourced e-commerce solutions having 25-30 partners live with Google Checkout and RitzCamera (electronics) which has repeatedly reported to benefit from GC. More stores:


With surpassing PayPal's Express Checkout and with the progress of eCommerce the recent Google eBay collision could opt for Google now tapping into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers, and business model.

• Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)' posted by eA : 4:00 PM  2 comments links to this post

  Google eBay Collision after eBay Live! Both, Google and eBay the two most successful business models (Search and Auctions) on the Internet, created brand new business models leading to high cash flows (Google, eBay), a very strong market share in their respective core markets, Google US with 49.7% search queries (comScore) in April 2007 within the search category and 120.010.000 unique visits overall in May 2007 (comScore) and eBay US with 94% visits (Hitwise) within the Auctions category in May 2007 and 79,428.000 unique visits in May 2007 (comScore) with an excellent brand awareness in their respective field and overall Google is the No. 1 brand worldwide and eBay No. 43 worldwide according to the 2007 BRANDZ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report.

It's nearly a year ago (June 2006) that Google Checkout launched in the US, recently Google Payment Ltd. became authorized for e-money, launched in the UK and I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany with the option to differentiate itself incorporating more payment methods respecting the local payments preferences. A clear collision course of Google and eBay.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy

Market	Google	eBay
Classifieds	Google Base	Craigslist, Kijiji
Product search	Google Product Search, Google Base	Shopping.com, eBay
Payments	Google Checkout	PayPal
Communications	Gmail/Talk	Skype

'According to Hitwise data, last week (week ending 2/3/07) the market share of visits to eBay was 844 times greater than the share of visits to Google Base.'

'Paypal's market share exceeded Google Checkout's by 71 to 1 in the same period.' (LeeAnn Prescott/Hitwise Feb 2007)

On the one hand Google and eBay have a business relation, Google drives traffic to eBay and eBay buys Google's AdWords, on the other hand expanding into new markets led to an increasing overlap in products, customers, and business models today. When Google last week announced it would hold a Checkout party that coincided with the beginning of eBay Live!, eBay announced that they would take away all their US ad spendings.

I'm not sure whether this was a good idea, although eBay partnered with Yahoo! promoting PayPal. Google is the absolute leader in search and both Yahoo! and Microsoft admitted some weeks ago, that they lost the battle against Google. I'm expecting that Google will gain further market share in the search category, I think eBay depends on the traffic from Google, but Google does not depend on the traffic from eBay - and it's a global marketplace, not just the US. Google redesigned its product search experience - Rebranding into Google Product Search - just add a few more products...

The Economist titled it's Google Checkout - PayPal comparison 'A battle at the checkout': Here some quotes:

'Checkout has already signed up a quarter of the top 500 online retailers'

'Google is prepared to run Checkout at break-even, or even at a loss'

'A survey in January found that only 18% of Checkout users rated their experience as good or very good, compared with 44% for PayPal.'

'“The way we think about Checkout is not as a standalone business, but as a driver of the Google network,” says Ben Ling, Checkout's boss.'

Google's market entry strategy always starts like that, but as they a gain better understanding of the markets they act more savvy.

Digital business is quickly becoming the method of choice for any enterprise to offer products and services on-demand to their market. Competition is the natural evolution in the way we will interact with, share and purchase products and services within the fastest moving market in the world today.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Communications, content, commerce and search are the challenging activities today, simplicity is the most compelling competitive advantage and different business models associated with them lead to a natural segmentation of the marketplace.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, markets

  ¶ 'Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!' posted by eA : 8:12 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy It's nearly a year ago (May 2006) that I asked myself 'Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?'. That time far and wide there was no Google Checkout on the horizon, but suddenly GC launched first in the US, then Google Payment Ltd. became authorized for e-money, launched in the UK and I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany.

Time to look at Google's Integrated Checkout strategy presented at the Pindar retail event:



I personally think that Google Checkout is a healthy thing for the eCommerce market and with the progress of eCommerce it is a big step forward in terms of user friendliness. Besides financial incentives incorporating more popular payment methods respecting local payments preferences beyond the credit card would be a good differentiator especially in smaller countries where it's competitor PayPal does not.

The Economist titled it's Google Checkout - PayPal comparison 'A battle at the checkout': Here some quotes:

'Checkout has already signed up a quarter of the top 500 online retailers'

'Google is prepared to run Checkout at break-even, or even at a loss'

'A survey in January found that only 18% of Checkout users rated their experience as good or very good, compared with 44% for PayPal.'

'“The way we think about Checkout is not as a standalone business, but as a driver of the Google network,” says Ben Ling, Checkout's boss.'

Heather Hopkins from Hitwise shares some statistics about GC:

'PayPal received a 67x larger share of US Internet visits last week compared with Google Checkout.'

'PayPal attracted a 53x larger share of UK visits last week than Google Checkout.'

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, payments

  ¶ 'Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy' posted by eA : 1:00 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today 9 and 1/2 months after initial launch in the US and 3 weeks after being certified for e-money by the UK-based FSA Google Checkout launched as expected within Europe of course first in the UK.

• Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA
• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout (US)
• More on Checkout
  

From initial advertising to final checkout it's an experience that reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives providing free transaction processing until 2008. It's also a good base for strategic partnerships.

• Releasing My Current Skill Set

Centralization into a single online payment method provides many practical benefits for citizens, I'm thinking of travelling, buying goods and services abroad, particularly when coupled with the progress of e-commerce it is a big step forward in user friendliness.

Main Competitor is PayPal.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, payments, uk

  ¶ 'Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today' posted by eA : 11:56 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA Well, payments is one of the most regulated businesses online, but it's also a very innovative way to differentiate one's business by new payments models. Customers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it is just a question of time that Google will expand into the European payments market.

I haven't heard yet an official statement from Google, but on a blog post from Linkdump on Payments I found a quotation of an FSA register search:

• Google - 462517 - Google Payment Limited, authorised, also for issuing electronic money (Mar/19/2007)
  
• Paypal - 226056 - Paypal (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/13/2004)
  

where PayPal has about 35 mio. customers across Europe. I did a bit of research out of my head and searched for German-based Click&Buy (~7 mio. customers ww) and UK-based Moneybookers (~2.8 mio. customers ww):

• 454127 - ClickandBuy (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Nov/29/2006)
• 214225 - Moneybookers Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/05/2003)

Both are authorized for e-money, too. The e-money license allows to offer a variety of financial services online including to send money worldwide to anyone with an email address, which has a very strong viral character and international transactions can be offered cheaper than by banks and traditional money transfer companies.

UK is the best place to acquire the e-money license across Europe and being certified by the FSA means to meet the highest standards in the financial world online.

More on Google Checkout

Labels: bizdev, checkout, ecommerce, google, payments, uk

  ¶ 'Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA' posted by eA : 6:15 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Building Trust with Google Checkout To get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life a payment technology should address fair pricing, safety and convenience of payment.

From Google Checkout Blog quoting a happy customer:

'We've never seen one product or promotion have the tremendous positive impact that Google Checkout had for Ritz Interactive in the fourth quarter of 2006, helping us grow over 30 percent during that period of time.'

Checking out with Google Checkout eCommerce and online shopping became an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers, it even reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives accepting Google Checkout.

The newly styled checkout button makes eCommerce AdWords campaigns even more visible and helps a potential customer to better find a store that accepts Google Checkout.

More about Google Checkout:

• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout
• New Revenues through Google Checkout
• No Google Checkout for eBay Sellers

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'Building Trust with Google Checkout' posted by eA : 10:52 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Huge Market for Google Checkout in Europe Experience showed that centralization into a single European currency provided many practical benefits for citizens, I'm thinking of travelling with a single currency and buying goods and services abroad, particularly when coupled with the progress of eCommerce it fostered significant growth in trade within the euro area and seen overall it's a big step forward in user friendlyness.

For most German retailers offering a web shopping cart means trying to follow and copy the Amazon model - tschibo.de, otto.de, quelle.de, weltbild.de, neckermann.de, conrad.de, buch.de - their number is endless, a shopping cart is a shopping cart with or without customer reviews and customer experience seems to be a foreign word for them although they should be able to form an attention loop to gather continuous feedback and establish an environment to optimize value.

On top of everything most of them don't even care about the critical areas where their shoppers drop out. Checkout and payments technology should address convenience to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.

The single personal Google Checkout provides an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers, it even reduces costs through clever financial incentives accepting Google Checkout as a payment method.

Experience showed that a centralization on behalf of a user simplifies the checkout process, leads to more sales and returns customers thus Google Checkout is a wonderful new thing that really can improve one's digital lifestyle. I'm expecting Google Checkout to enter the European Market in 2007.

Labels: checkout, europe, google, lifestyle, markets, payments

  ¶ 'Huge Market for Google Checkout in Europe' posted by eA : 12:19 AM  0 comments links to this post

  New Revenues through Google Checkout Potential credit card fraud and identity theft do still prevent many users from buying online and before one had to maintain several accounts across several merchants.

With the new single personal Google Checkout online shopping becomes an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers, it even reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives accepting Google Checkout.

Experience showed that a centralization on behalf of a user simplifies the checkout process, leads to more sales and returns customers thus Google Checkout is a wonderful new thing that really improves one's digital lifestyle.

• Between Initial Advertising and Final Checkout
• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout
• Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?

I think introducing such a service to the European countries makes sense, too.

Also here experience showed that centralization into a single European currency provided many practical benefits for citizens, I'm thinking of travelling with a single currency and buying goods and services abroad, particularly when coupled with the progress of e-commerce it fostered significant growth in trade within the euro area and seen overall it's a big step forward in user friendlyness.
Get the turbo in here.

Labels: checkout, google

  ¶ 'New Revenues through Google Checkout' posted by eA : 11:29 AM  0 comments links to this post

  No Google Checkout for eBay Sellers Can't beat them - exclude them: 'eBay bans sellers from using Google Checkout' thus looks pretty concerned about the impact it could have on its own PayPal payment service and admits that Google Checkout is a potentially significant competitor to PayPal.

Google offers financial incentives to merchants for accepting Google Checkout: 'For every $1 you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 in sales for free through Google Checkout' ergo targets merchants to advertise at Google, which is a pretty clear motivation and a clever stratey to attract new merchants, not to exclude any merchants.

eBay is using its market dominance in online auctions to limit competition in the online payments market although a growing number of consumers are skeptical of using PayPal. I'm pretty convinced that there is a huge consumer demand for new payment technologies and from a consumer perspective I don't understad why they do it.

• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout
• Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?

Once the NYTimes wrote: 'More than 37 percent of bills are paid by check; 35 percent are paid online. The remaining 28 percent are paid with cash, debit cards or other payment methods'.

It's time to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.

Labels: checkout, google

  ¶ 'No Google Checkout for eBay Sellers' posted by eA : 11:25 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout When I made this post I was talking about a differentiation by a new payments model.

'Conception for such a payments technology should address a fair pricing, safety and convenience of payment to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.... Consumers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it's just a question of time when Google will enter the payments market'.

They entered and rolled out across the US Google Checkout is a very integrated experience from initial advertising to final checkout targeting eCommerce platforms to advertise at Google.

'For every $1 you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 in sales for free through Google Checkout. If you exceed your free transaction processing for the month, or you don't advertise with AdWords at all, you'll only be charged 2% plus $.20 per transaction'.

Both, consumers and eCommerce platforms can benefit, because it simplyfies the checkout process, builds trust and tracks all orders and shipping in one place. Here's a list of participating stores and a great promotion including 10$ GC's.
I'm wondering when Google MicroPayments will come...

Labels: checkout, google, payments

  ¶ 'Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout' posted by eA : 4:02 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout? I'm really surprised, Americans still pay their bills by check, they love the good old US mail! A recent poll conducted by Harris Interactive and featured by the NYTimes indicates:

'More than 37 percent of bills are paid by check; 35 percent are paid online. The remaining 28 percent are paid with cash, debit cards or other payment methods'.

I'm pretty convinced that there is a huge consumer demand for new payment technologies, including cash, checks, credit cards, debit cards, stored value cards and Internet banking. Conception for such a payment technology should address a fair pricing, safety and convenience of payment to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.

Well, payments is one of the most regulated businesses online, but as recent facts and rumors show: PayPal, Amazon, Google and Yahoo! like to differentiate their business by new payments models. Consumers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it's just a question of time when Google will enter the payments market.

Handling your every online transaction, the potential revenue from Google's payments of each purchase would make AdSense look like penuts and PayPal's market value wuld drop by several billion $'s. For now it's just speculation, but I'm expecting more services like this in the future, there is too much inefficiencies in the market.

Labels: checkout, google

  ¶ 'Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?' posted by eA : 10:45 PM  0 comments links to this post