Google Checkout Review

Bashar — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:49:15 +0000

Since its release I have wanted to try it. It was only limited to U.S. when they allowed me to register my credit card and Kuwait Shipping address. This awkward start raised the flag! Months later, the Google Checkout service is available globally, but I still did not see a use for it with the current signed up merchants. Few weeks back I had my eye on Nintendo Wii, but it was always out of stock, or extremely expensive. I tried various sites, Become.com, Google Base, and Froogle eventually found me a retail store called TRLStore.com (Short for Takes Really Long I pressume). The site had it in stock and for a reasonable price. What’s even better is they had Google Checkout. I was already registered so it’s very tempting, the whole thing is only few clicks away. Even though the TRL load time was extremely slow, I still managed to add the item to the cart and checkout. This was back in 8th Feb.

Immediately after my order, I received an email from Google Checkout with the status below:

Feb 8 –

Your credit card (VISA xxx) was charged for $366.62. “GOOGLE *TRL Store” will appear on your credit card statement.

That was it. They were really quickly collecting their money, but then again, most people are! I did not care much however if the item is really going to get delivered for that price. 7 working days later, the status is still the same. When I contacted TRL through Google Checkout (they use virtual email to hide your email from the store) I received a reply saying they already sent me an email two days back, and that the item is still out of stock and they have no fixed date for the next shipment. A good hope is 1st March, but it’s again not certain, and I am not sure where do I stand in the queue. I did not receive the two days before email, either because simply they did not send it, or the mechanism of forwarding the email through Google Checkout failed. Anyways, the end result is, I have paid $366 for something they don’t have, when they actually promoted it as in stock, and this is the only reason I chose them. I decided this is a waste of time and money and canceled my order. My argument however that the item was marketed as in stock did not suit them and they replied with this:

“Your order has been canceled. Please wait 3-5 days for the credit to get applied to your bank.

BTW, we have not been promoting we had in stock. In fact, we have not had stock since 01/16/2007. Our page shows very clearly that it is not available.

http://www.trlstore.com/pc-38362-1276-nintendo-wii-console-wii.aspx

”

The funny thing is that, even when he posted the URL back to me, and up till this very moment, the Wii Console link does not mention the item is out of stock or not available. In fact the two words (stock, available) do not exist right now in the link. Instead they are promoting the item as “On Sale For: $312.29 (USD)“. You can wonder how the out of stock item is on sale, pretty amusing. After that incident only, I found out that CNet has a review on Google Checkout, and that it is only rated as 3.9 POOR!

So what now? To summarize, below are the Pros & Cons of Google Checkout:

Pros:

Single sign on with Google. Your personal information is hidden from the merchants and no need for multiple signup passwords.
Wide variety of merchants, with quick and fast search through them from one interface.

Cons:

Additional fees for Google Checkout service, as the CNet reviews show.
The wide variety of merchants is causing low profile merchants to spoil the service quality and overall experience of the end user
Instant Charging: Even when the item is not in stock, you get charged immediately when you place the order. I am not sure if this is related to how the RTLStore operates or how Google Checkout behaves, it seems like Google Checkout nature and it’s really inconvenient and is on the side of the merchant. Unlike Amazon who charge shipments separately only once they are shipped out.
Communication problems: CNet reviews revealed cases when merchants did not receive customer purchases, and my experience suggests a possible similar contact forwarding problem.
No Merchants Review: REALLY BAD! With the wide variety of merchants, how can I tell which merchants I can trust? Right now, there is no way to review merchant rating. Even though Google Checkout prompts you for a merchant review 2 weeks after your order, they still do not provide your review for public. The merchant him self however is allowed to discuss your review. So it’s really a feedback to the merchant, whom I already disargued with, rather than a review for other consumers. This is either because they still don’t have enough reviews to publish them, or because the reviews are still so bad they don’t want to scare people off. I strongly believe it’s the second reason. Cnet reviews prove it, the unknown brands give you a hint, and the fact that the seller is the only one outside Google Checkout beside you who can view your review and comment on it, as they indicate here. It seems they want to reach customer satisfaction by encouraging comments exchange under their supervision.

I hope I have made the Cons list long and detailed enough to keep you away from the hassle of using the service, in the meantime at least. I really like the concept and wish it can improve. I would be a user again if they can deliver quality service.

Google Checkout vs PayPal

Bashar — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:08:50 +0000

Last year, Google got into a new market which is the online payment with Google Checkout. Google is a well known famous brand that people tend to trust. But so far, Google hasn’t got into such sensitive area. End of 2006 Google ran a free checkout and $10 discounts campaigns which brought more customers to the service. A survey made by JPMorgan on 1,100 online shoppers showed %6 used Google Checkout, compared to %42 for their PayPal rival.

While this percentage is not bad at all for a start, the other part of the survey shows only %19 of the customers are satisfied with Google Checkout service, when PayPal has %44 satisfaction rate. There are thousands of online stores offering the same items online for different prices, but the reason I always order from Amazon is that whenever I try a different site, I miss the quality of the service. InformationWeek has more on this.

I have not yet tried Google Checkout. I wanted to try it from the very beginning, I signed up and registered my card. After that I tried to checkout from one shop and I started getting a general error message. I tried again and again from different shops but all attempts failed. Contacting Google Checkout Support they told me the service is still only inside US. From that moment, I had a feeling the service is not taken care of properly. Otherwise, there should be a mention of country restriction, and I should not have the option to register with my country, which is not supported, and fill in my card details and only after that I know my destination is not supported. Ofcourse the service now is available for various countries, but I don’t feel encouraged to use it, although the concept is great, and PayPal is not usable in Kuwait, you have to have foreign account.

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Google Checkout Review

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