Google Checkout has become a hot topic of discussion lately because Google entered the competitive field of money processing online. As a direct competitor with companies such as 2Checkout or Paypal, Google has their hands full to make this the “better” product of choice. Google rolled out some new features this week for Google Checkout:
- Auto-charge - Beginning today, merchants can enable a feature to automatically charge orders that have successfully authorized for funds, and have cleared the Google Checkout fraud detection process. This setting is available in the “Settings” tab under “Preferences.”
- Reconciliation report changes - The Reconciliation Reports will now show the AdWords Fee Credit as a separate line item, where previously AdWords Fee Credits were displayed on the same line item as the order. (This is shown in the “Fee Adjustment” column.) We’ve made this change to reflect the fact that the AdWords Fee Credit is typically applied at a different time than when the order was charged.
- Merchant order numbers - Previously, merchant order numbers associated with Google Checkout orders via the
command were only displayed in the Reconciliation Report. Now, if a merchant order number has been assigned to an order, it will also be displayed in the lower right corner of an invoice. Please note that your merchant order number is only available to you via the Merchant Center interface and is not displayed to buyers. - Sandbox changes - As part of our effort to improve the Google Checkout integration experience for developers, we’ve changed the visual appearance of the Google Checkout Sandbox. Now, when you log into the Sandbox user interface, the background will contain a watermark to differentiate it from the production Google Checkout system. We hope this will help reduce confusion about which system you’re using when you’re developing against the Google Checkout API.
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Once I start providing products of my own, I will definitely be looking into the seller side of things for Checkout and using them personally. Right now I’m only on the consumer side of things.
