Is Google Checkout the Paypal killer?
After Google released its long awaited payment service, everybody was refering to it as the “paypal killer”. Well, look, what Google says about the own service. Solid business services just take a while to develop, even online 
IMHO is the power of a payment also determined by its transaction costs and Paypal is cheaper, flat out. Do not get me wrong: I am not a Paypal fan, but a Google fan neither. I try to look at payment services as a commodity - as the name might suggest: A SERVICE.
Paypal definitely has problems with its non-existing speed. It is sometimes so slow that we need to work HOURS on the site to get all Payments, Refunds, etc. in order - but (and that is the killer) it is so damn simple to implement, that it beats everything that is out there!
Right now we are working on our own Payment Services to finally overcome both problems: speed and expenses and I hope that we will be ready to hit the market by early next year. Stay tuned!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I take it you’ve heard that Google have increased their fees to be the same as Paypal. Baring in mind that you get a discount the higher volumes you put through either system, is there any advantages in continuing to offer bother (as if you just offer one, you’ll have higher volume and save transaction fees? (And considering Paypal has larger coverage and is easier to implement, and as my blog post discusses, can actually be cheaper than Google on cross-border fees: perhaps the question is “why bother with Google Checkout at all?”)