Dreaming of Google Checkout

[powerstream]

Google checkout has some incredible incentives and some of my friends are getting a lot of sales using Google Checkout, but the
way that it is implimented on Shopsite is impossible for my business, which relies a lot on postal service for international sales.

I would like some discussion on my dream implimentation

1. "Add to Cart" takes us to the traditional "Shopping Cart" page including shipping options.

2. In the "payment options" pulldown one of the options is "google checkout"

3. This page does not have a "checkout" button. Instead it has a "Proceed"
or "Payment options" button.

4. The new "Payment Options page" is passed the same information that is now
passed to the "checkout page" including the total amount, but it only has
two buttons "Checkout" and "Google Checkout"

5. If "Google Checkout" is selected then the total price including
shipping is pased to Google Checkout. If the "Checkout" button is
clicked then we go to the traditional "checkout" page.

And we are all smiling all the way to the bank!

best regards
mark

[loren_d_c]

Hey, that does sound great, unfortunately pretty much all of that is against Google's policies:

http://checkout.google.com/seller/policies.html
see 2c, 2e, 3a, 4b, 4d, etc.

Another thing that 2e means (that it doesn't specifically say) is that Google wants the cart to pass them the shipping and tax tables so that they can display them to the shopper, they don't want the cart displaying them as selectable options beforehand.

-Loren

[powerstream]

OK, let's talk about what can be done.

My problems are:

1. customers trying to fill up a shopping cart have no shipping information, neither cost nor options until checkout.
2. there is an extra page load involved for sales people trying to calculate shipping costs.
3. international business would go away again if I can't offer parcel post
4. I can see that google is trying to monopolize the checkout process, which I might be able to live with, but it is very heavy handed.

Can anyone point me to a shopsite based merchant that is using google checkout? How about one that also has calculated shipping costs?

[BigBooksandGifts.com]

what about the

API callback URL

What do I need to enter on Google ?

[BigBooksandGifts.com]

OK ..nevermind. I found the documentation about this. But how do I get the order into shopsite? Is this even possible ?

[loren_d_c]

are you talking about an order that has already been placed? If an order was already placed before you had fully configured Google Checkout with the callback URL, then I don't know that it can/will ever result in an order in ShopSite. But once you have it correctly configured then the Google Checkout transactions initiated via the ShopSite shopping cart should automatically appear as ShopSite orders once they have been completed in Google Checkout.

-Loren

[BigBooksandGifts.com]

Works perfectly. Thanks so much for your help.