Google Plans to Discontinue Google Checkout?
It wouldn’t be the first time Google (NASDAQ GOOG) caved in to competition, anyone remember Google Answers? As Paypal sees impressive growth numbers, rumor has it that nearly 90% of merchants have dropped the use of Google Checkout after the discontinuation of their “free” processing period.
With Google’s stock in tanking now, rumor has it that Google will continue to push the program until Q3-2008, at which point if it doesn’t see a major improvement then, in fact, it will drop the program. Partly due to the reduced user base and partly due to fraud, Google Checkout is just too much dead weight for the ailing Google to carry.
Personally I say it was a good run guys but I can’t blame you for wanting to drop the program. Let’s face it, merchant services are a tough business to get into. For whatever it’s worth, my advice would either be to buy eBay or a real fraud management company. If you decide neither, just drop the program and call it a day, no one will hold the $100+ Million dollars lost on that endeavor against you.
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Good post. You make some great points that most people do not fully understand.
"Ultimately, with the banks fitting the bill ...
Google is trying to be a jack of all trades, their only success is their search and their advertising program. ...
Google needs to concentrate on all these problems in order for them to excell in all directions.. hope they learn ...
Nice post. If you're looking for any more info http://www.amex-black.com has some good stuff 
Comment by Payments Guy on 4 February 2008:
Why do you waste your time spreading bullshit? Google just turned on fees and there’s no way that 90% of their customer base has made ANY decision about staying or going.
Comment by johnsonile on 5 February 2008:
This is only a rumours and i dont see why Google can simply let the merchants go without any offer for them.. its such a waste for them..
Comment by Tfusion on 5 February 2008:
Google is tricky, they always do things like that huh. I stopped trusted them when they turned down my adsense account for no reason.
Comment by sagars on 5 February 2008:
well, it’s all win situation for paypal then,
i still think google will come up with a better service than this
Comment by titan on 5 February 2008:
Ehm..If its really truth. Maybe some of us will dissapoint. But not all people will happy with that news. I believe some customer still happy use google checkout. Its depend on Google if they want to do that or not.
Comment by GuyForum on 6 February 2008:
I was actually expecting it from long time back, as google checkout could not even come half way closer to paypal. But when they launched i too believed that they are here to topple paypal but it is now the other way around!
Comment by zhar on 6 February 2008:
Most of the people i know don’t have google checkout account. Paypal is a leader in this market.
Paypal does well because of ebay and millions of its users using it to do the trade. What Google needs is a medium like ebay to push google checkout. Froogle is already dead, this seems logical to discontinue Checkout.
Comment by megha on 6 February 2008:
the only thing google failed in was the verification thing since most of the people in various parts of world want to save tax they wont want to verify themselves and paypal has that option for personal use accounts
Comment by akshay on 6 February 2008:
google and quiting?? no way it has the largest brandvalue over internet space and i am sure it can increase its spectrum here too through various lucrative offers
Comment by sumedha on 6 February 2008:
if that is the case what will happen of its checkout customers?? and what about froogle and variuos other services that are supporting google checkout only? where will they go?
Comment by sheena on 6 February 2008:
you must be joking only…its not possible that google quits so early …already its having competition from google and yahoo (merger talks) no way it can look back
Comment by mozaic on 6 February 2008:
this is good ..i dont think google was really competive in front of paypal which has a good brand build as of later …also fees and services are quite good so why will people opt for g’s checkout
Comment by Ranger on 6 February 2008:
i was thinking of joinging clicksense.com but that supports only google checkout know how will be i will be able to get into the clicking system without google cashout??
really sad news
Comment by gordon on 7 February 2008:
I still don’t think so, Google checkout is over. It will continue to be in this market, it is not logical to discontinue it totally. They have customers who are using it. They closed down google answers, now this.
Comment by pcking on 11 February 2008:
WHy?! That sounds stupid over a little 90% fall!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHA! TAKE THAT GOOGLE. But, seriously they’re overreacting
Comment by TheReader on 13 February 2008:
Paypal propaganda! The truth is eBay banned the use of Google Checkout from the start (”too new”,”not safe” they said). 2 years later Google Checkout is still not allowed on eBay.Of course the real reason is Paypal. Eventhough Paypal became huge, it is actually now, and will in the future, loose business for 3 main reasons; 1- eBay activities are slowing down and will certainly continue to slow down (new Feedback policies will cut into the quality seller base,who have increasingly more options like amazon,which will furthemore accelerate buyers migration due to an increasingly poor choice and therefore cut into Paypal’s main income .2- Business Paypal’s way (or the highway) will not go through with larger retailers as easy as with eBay Sellers, , not so depending on Paypal for business.Many have already dropped Paypal as payment option, especially those that started offering Paypal as an option early on. 3- Europe’s largest markets, like Germany,already dropped Paypal, as there is now more listing on eBay Germany not offfering Paypal than lisitng offering it.Since Paypal is the only mandatory payment option in many categories on eBay UK, traffic and sales have been plunging.Dictat does not really work well oevrseas!
Google Checkout is actually doing very well when you consider it’s age and it’s non-access to ebay transactions and an incoming marketplace (Google’s or else) will bring Google Checkout or a revised version of it to the forefornt where it belongs.
Comment by Huseyn on 24 February 2008:
Since I am not using the Google Checkout, I am not really affected by this issue. And I think it is ok that google discontinue the use of google checkout since it is not very user friendly. Paypal still dominate in terms of money transfer.
Comment by swap on 24 February 2008:
The way things are going for them this could actually be a good decision for google. Anyways I think this is just another rumour but could be true in near future.
Comment by Rootkit on 25 February 2008:
Paypal is ruling the scene right now. There is now way google can just force their way into this market . Paypal has a very large userbase and google must come up with something epic that will get users to change over to google-checkout.