EightBlack.

It wasn’t really a surprise to the industry that Google waded into online payments.

After all, they’ve essentially been exposed to billions of dollars worth of credit card transactions since they started given that 90% of Adwords users all settle their accounts via automated credit card processing.

The story has been online for a few weeks now.

What will be interesting to watch is just how PayPal respond, given that PayPal used to dominate this space.

The official Google blog quotes:

“One cool feature of Google Checkout is that you can buy from stores with a single Google login – no more entering the same info each time you buy, and no more having to remember different usernames and passwords for each store. To help you find places to shop, you’ll see a little icon on the Google.com ads of stores offering Google Checkout. It’s an easy way to identify fast, secure places to shop when you search. And after you’ve placed your order, Google Checkout provides a purchase history where you can track your orders and shipping information in one place.”

Checkout is yet another piece of inventory that’s added to the already swollen arsenal of Google Inc,.

I know it will gain traction because Google have been clever in the way they’ve deployed it by tying into the Adwords platform and showing potential consumers Google friendly sites or products.

The New York Times goes on to say,

For consumers, this sort of service, often referred to as an online wallet, is hardly new. Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo have offered similar wallets, which proved to have limited appeal. While the PayPal service of eBay has attracted widespread use, it offers additional features like the ability to transfer money from checking accounts.

But for merchants, the service comes with a twist: Google will waive some or all of the transaction fees for companies that buy advertising from it. That may give the service a leg up on competitors like PayPal and several smaller companies that help online merchants accept credit cards.

It will also add another entry to the list of businesses that have been shaken up by Google’s innovations, a list that already includes publishing, advertising and desktop software.

I think PayPal still has some handy features, like transferring money between accounts and providing a debit card against your account, but Google definitely wants a piece of the ecommerce space and will leave no stone unturned to find out the best way to corner the market.

Here’s the company promo…

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 7:48 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.