Chinese Alipay Launched as a Global Payments Option Located in the Asia-Pacific market the world's future Internet super-power China's largest e-commerce company, the Alibaba Group, which also owns Alibaba.com, Taobao, Yahoo! China and Alisoft launched Alipay as a global payments option for Chinese customers including 12 major currencies.

From PRNewswire:

'As of August 20, 2007, Alipay had more than 47 million users in China, growing at a rate of more than 80,000 new registered users each day. Alipay's average daily transaction volume exceeds RMB 150 million, handling an average 780,000 transactions each day.'

'Alipay is the largest online payment service provider in China with a market share of over 50%. '

'Alipay expects to expand its overseas partner list to over 100 retail websites by the end of the year, to cover product providers ranging from cosmetics, fashion, bags and jewelry to household and digital products. The company also predicts the international service will reach monthly transaction volumes of RMB 800 million by the end of 2007.'

'Alipay's first international partner retailers include Sa Sa International Holdings Limited, a leading Asian cosmetics retailing and beauty services group; StrawberryNET, the world's leading provider of discounted designer skin care, make-up, cosmetics, perfume and men's and women's fragrances; and J Shoppers, a subsidiary of Japan's largest listed mail order company Nissen On- line, focusing on mail order sales outside Japan.'

Alternative payment platforms are catching up, become more and more popular and with the progress of eCommerce they represent a big step forward in terms of user friendliness improving one's digital lifestyle and I'm excited how Chinese customers will shop across the world.

Global market leader PayPal got another formidable competitor!

• Welcome to the Payments Club, Amazon FPS Started
• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• More on Checkout

Labels: alipay, AsiaPacific, bizdev, china, payments

  ¶ 'Chinese Alipay Launched as a Global Payments Option' posted by eA : 11:33 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Welcome to the Payments Club, Amazon FPS Started Today Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS) designed as a Web-service tailored to the needs of developers launched on top of Amazon's reliable and scalable payment infrastructure. It claims to be flexible, inexpensive, reliable and secure, supports micro payments, enables 69 mio. active Amazon customers to use FPS and the most important, they have experience -- Amazon processes global payments for more than a decade now.

More than a year ago when I had the idea 'Why not Using Online-Payments to Checkout?' 37% of all US-bills were payed by check. Although it's very traditional in the US to pay by check I'm still 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.

Alternative payment platforms are already catching up among the top 200 e-commerce sites, Bill Me Later commanded 28 percent market share with PayPal and Google Checkout representing 26 percent and 13 percent, as a recent poll showed.

Amazon FPS complements other Amazon Web-services like S3 and EC2, offers code snippets in C#, Java, PHP, and Ruby code and with the progress of eCommerce it is a big step forward in terms leveraging the long tail – I'm excited what kind of services will make use of FPS.

It took Google 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 to launch Google Checkout across Europe of course first in the UK.

I'm wondering when Amazon FPS will come to Europe.

Labels: amazon, bizdev, payments

  ¶ 'Welcome to the Payments Club, Amazon FPS Started' posted by eA : 12:09 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

  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

  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