Eric Says:
February 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Michelle,
I am also with RPG and am very dissatisfied with the service. We are able to do a CC refund, but it requires about a week and a series of phone calls and emails.

We have been using Google Checkout for about 6 months. In addition to using it on my site, I used it to collect money for my college reunion. One word: WOW. The level of control you have over your transactions is amazing. You can choose to automatically authorize the charge or to manually charge. Then you can also choose to charge only part of the transaction, or the whole thing. You also have great control over refunds.

I can’t comment on the response of your demographic, but I notice that younger people generally go for GC on our site. I would not let that discourage you from using it. Since it is free to install and generally charges less per transaction than a regular gateway, you have nothing to lose.

Good Luck

James Stiebel Says:
February 18th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

We added Google Checkout to one of our sites and we get less 5% of our sales through it. We have also seen many of our competitors adopt it as well. Therefore, I doubt anyone is having any issues with it.

By the way, Authorize.net has worked well for us but I would also be careful with which institution you get it through. At one point, our previous institution, Wells Fargo, was contacting our customers to verify sales.

When asked, they said it was within their rights to verify all sales. We quickly switched to another institution which was within our rights.

Steve Says:
February 19th, 2008 at 8:51 am

We’ve been using Google Checkout for about a year now and as an add-on to our existing gateway (as you are looking at). It was free all last year, but we also use Google Adwords, so it’s still worth it to us even though we are paying for it now. I can’t see any drawbacks to having it at all. The definite benefit of using it is that Google will place an icon next to your ads showing that you accept Google Checkout. It makes our ad stand out more than the other businesses that don’t use it and it’s a free benefit. You should go for it.

Steve
President
Columbia Sports Card LLC

James King Says:
February 19th, 2008 at 8:55 am

I switched to Authorize.net about two years ago and have never looked back. We can issue full refunds, partial refunds, rebill the same card, etc. Most important, it intergates simply into our shopping cart and does with many, many other carts as well.

I’m not a fan of offering Google Checkout (or PayPal or others). I don’t think it adds any credibility and does add a level of distraction. Too many choices can confuse or delay a shopper. That’s the last thing you want to do while they are trying to checkout. Make it simple, easy and don’t make them think.

Lars Says:
February 19th, 2008 at 10:07 am

People like choices. You should offer both Google Checkout *and* PayPal as options. Especially PayPal.

A lot of people have PayPal accounts that they prefer to use with unknown merchants so that they don’t have to share their credit card information.

Google Checkout isn’t as well known with the non-techie crowd as PayPal, but I think it will also give you higher sales if you add it as a payment option.

Most people do understand the difference, and that it is an additional option for how to pay. So I don’t think it will cause a big confusion for your customers.

Authorize.net is one of the biggest gateways, and you can’t go wrong with it. It is also compatible with most shopping carts.

Steve Klebe Says:
February 19th, 2008 at 10:16 am

I spent 9 years at CyberSource but am not in the gateway business any longer so I can be somewhat unbiased. CyberSource which recently acquired Authorize.Net is the premier independent internet payment gateway. Gateways, in general, including CyberSource, charge a very nominal flat fee to use their infrastructure. They have a very reliable, and flexible platform that works for merchants from the smallest to the largest. Rather than use a proprietary gateway from the various credit card companies, by using someone like CyberSource, you can easily move your merchant account and that flexibility alone will probably save you enough to more than cover the nominal per TX fee they charge in the bargaining power that gives you. Good luck!!! p.s. 10-15 years ago, there was a proliferation of gateways, today you may as well go with one of the top 3 as the likelyhood that anyone below that level will survive for the long term is questionable and the disruption to your business if you go for cheap could be devasting.

Jose Says:
February 19th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Michelle,

I would be a bit hesitant with Google Checkout for your targeted audience. Google Checkout, similar to Pay Pal, would present another payment option via user sign-in. I’m not sure this would be an efficient check-out process for your clients. Have you thought about exploring USAePay, Authorize.net, Verisign ? These gateways offer the flexibility you seek minus the confusion of a paypal or google checkout.

Good Luck!

Sean Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 8:12 am

I have the same target demographics as you. My experience when offering Paypal was dreadful. It would redirect people to paypal to pay. Abandoned carts rose, and the majority of people would not pay by paypal and then would end up reprocessing the order using a credit card leaving me with two orders, one paid for and one not. I know this is about google checkout, and I do not have experience with google checkout. It may work different, but what I have found is anything that adds confusion in this demographic leads to people abandoning sales.