Google Checkout

[ptogel]

Are there plans to integrate Google Checkout? I would love to see it.....

Peter

[805tech]

implement google checkout please. once you have it all set up, contact Google and let them know, so they can add VirueMart to their list of "Shopping Carts that work with Google Checkout"

Let me know if you need any help with anything!

Thanks so much, keep up the good work!

[Simon A.]

Looking into it now.

Google has a bunch of PHP code:
http://code.google.com/apis/checkout/samplecode.html

It requires PHP 4.2, the PHP dom_xml extension, as well as the PHP libcurl extension.

[Simon A.]

Turns out that it's a bit of a pain, as Google Checkout requires you to enter all sorts of information about the order: order items, coupons, shipping. Then they calculate the total and run you through a checkout process. It's not nearly as smooth a process as PayPal.

Still plugging away at it, though.

[koltz]

Great thing I see with Google Checkout is no monthly fee like most others like PayPal with a $20 monthly.  I think the best thing for Google to do this is making PayPal accountable and probably will eliminate their monthly fee.

Good luck on trying to get it to work, would be a benefit to the community.

Corey

[Simon A.]

I have a business account with PayPal and pay no monthly fees. PayPal's 2.9% + US$0.30 per transaction is steeper than Google's rates though, 2% + US$0.20 per transaction.

The big bonus comes if you advertise with Google AdWords. They give you free transactions if you advertise with them.

Here are PayPal's rates:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees

Google's rates:
http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=30724&ctx=sibling

[koltz]

I was talking about PayPal Payments Pro to use their credit card processing.

[mavric]

I would be interested in seeing this offered for VirtueMart as I have never been a fan of PayPal and I also use AdWords which would be a bonus....

[805tech]

im excited to see that you're taking an interest in implementing google checkout. I am confident that getting the process out of the way right now is going to be best as google forsees almost 60% of carts to integrate GoogleCheckout. In fact, adding Google payments with your cart will probably draw more merchants toward using your cart software, as GoogleCheckout does have unbeatable rates. Perhaps you could even integrate an Adword generator for shopping cart items?

Just keep us posting, im checking back every day because WE NEED THIS!!!

keep up the good work

[Simon A.]

I've spent a fair amount of time working on this, and have it working reasonably well.

EXCEPT I've solved the wrong problem. My mistake was assuming that Google Checkout is a payment service, like PayPal, or a CC gateway. I created a new payment class, and added it to the database, so that at the end of the checkout process, the customer would have the option to pay with Google, PayPal, Credit card, and so on.

But that's not how the big G wants it. You see, they require you to use them as your shopping cart as well. Take a look at their policies:
http://checkout.google.com/seller/policies.html

Here's a good one:

• 4c. Place Google Checkout buttons before your login pages
  Buyers should only have to provide their purchasing information once. If you require users to register or sign in to your site, you must ensure Google Checkout checkout buttons are visible before the login process. (You may still track visits and personalize pages using cookies.)

And how about these gems:

• 1d. Keep Google Checkout purchase history up to date 
  You must update your buyers’ Google Checkout purchase history with shipping notifications and package tracking numbers (if applicable) as soon as this information becomes available.

• 2c. Do not ask for zip codes prior to Google Checkout checkout unless necessary
  You may require buyers to provide their zip codes prior to Google Checkout checkout only if required to determine whether you can fulfill an order. (Example: You may require a zip code prior to checkout to ensure an item is in stock for a buyer’s geographic location.) You may not ask for zip code information prior to checkout for any other reason. 
• 2d. Ability to enter coupon codes must be available to buyers after initiating checkout through Google Checkout
  If you accept coupons on your website in any way, you must allow buyers to provide coupon code information in the Google Checkout checkout process.

They want to control the entire checkout process. What a pain.

[Firestar]

How sad. I'm starting to wonder if I'll implement this! I have no intention of doing all of those things. I just want a payment processor!

This is bad news indeed. And knowing Google, it's not going to change for our benefit.

[Cameron]

Hey don't give up now.
The whole community needs this.
Anything worth doing is not easy. Ever.
Just keep going we are cheering you on.

[Firestar]

Ok, well. I had a chat to a few people and I figured this out.

The idea is not to replace our existing shopping cart with Google, but to add Google IN ADDITION to our shopping cart process. The idea is that google will be a parallel process to our shopping carts and users can choose which one they want to use. Obviously, this makes it almost infinitely more complex to code (or use if you don't want to code it), since this means that you'll have to either make use of two order screens to maintain orders or somehow get your orders into google (which I don't think will be possible) or get Google's orders into our order backend.

Either way, it's gonna be quite a complex thing to do...

If you need any help, please feel free to shout. I don't know much, but perhaps I can help. I take it that by this message you see that I now do want to implement this as soon as it's available for my country.

Cheers
Firestar

[koltz]

Something like the normal PayPal system, but Google "requires" more information.  I wonder if they would actually check for coupons and such if you implemented it.

Corey

[Simon A.]

Still going on it. Needed a little time off to ponder after finding out how badly I had screwed it up.

If you want to encourage me, visit my site and place an order, and encourage your friends to do so. PayPal is accepted.

http://www.bigbluesaw.com/