Google Checkout

No, for sales under $100,000 total per month, Google is always cheaper.

PayPal: 2.2%-2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction (note that it's 2.9% up to $3,000 per month and doesn't hit that 2.2% until you reach $10,000 per month).

Google: 2.0% plus 20 cents per transaction.

The only way PayPal can be cheaper is if you do over $100,000 per month in transactions (where it goes to 1.9%) AND the extra 10 cents per is less than .1% of the total price (with lots of inexpensive things sold, Google is always cheaper).

The only downside I see to Google's system is that you can't accept PayPal with it. :)

-- Matthew

How does that compare to PayPal's terms?

Their terms are amazingly ugly or perhaps arrogant. See http://checkout.google.com/seller/policies.html

Merchants
- cannot ask for any buyer information before sending them to Google
- cannot create store accounts with info from Google
- cannot send their own order confirmation e-mails
- must ship the product before charging the customer
- have only 72 hours of honor period from order placement (weekend counts?)
- must place Google button before store login
- cannot show Google button again if the customers initiates store checkout
- must land the customer on Google page within 1 second after button is clicked with no intermediate page
- must make Google checkout available at least 95% of the time
- if shipping and tax are calculated dynamically, must provide backup rates and stick to them (no settlement tolerance)

Bottom line, customers belong to Google, not merchants.

I have not tried any of them yet, but I trust more paypal than google when it comes to money management. Googles might also try to take advertisement opportunities in order to have lower fees. From the fees you have listed, the difference is minimal. I would not mind paying 50 cent or even 1 $ higher per game sold just to make sure it's paypal that does the job.

In fact those are the only two such. To quote from a post I just made to the BoardGameDesign forum:

1,e. Do not create additional buyer accounts using Google Checkout
information

You may not use any Google Checkout purchase or account information to
create additional accounts for buyers. This includes additional
accounts directly associated with your store or with any other entity.

>> - cannot create store accounts with info from Google

1.e Do not create additional buyer accounts using Google Checkout
information

You may not use any Google Checkout purchase or account information to
create additional accounts for buyers. This includes additional
accounts directly associated with your store or with any other entity.

>> - cannot send their own order confirmation e-mails

This is one of the two items in the list which is optional:

1.g. Do not send order confirmation emails

To provide a consistent shopping experience, Google will send order
confirmation emails to buyers making purchases with Google
Checkout. We strongly recommend that you reduce the number of
redundant emails your buyers receive by not sending your own order
confirmation emails.

>> - must ship the product before charging the customer

2.b. Ship orders before charging the buyer's credit card

You may not attempt to charge the buyer's credit card until you have
shipped the order.

>> - have only 72 hours of honor period from order placement (weekend
>> counts?)

2.a. Charge credit cards within 72 hours

When a buyer confirms an order, Google authorizes the buyer\u2019s
credit card for the full amount of the purchase. You must charge the
buyer\u2019s card within 72 hours of the authorization to guarantee
the funds. Funds not captured after 72 hours (including the remainder
of partial fund captures), are no longer guaranteed.

>> - must place Google button before store login

4.c. Place Google Checkout buttons before your login pages

Buyers should only have to provide their purchasing information
once. If you require users to register or sign in to your site, you
must ensure Google Checkout checkout buttons are visible before the
login process. (You may still track visits and personalize pages using
cookies.)

>> - cannot show Google button again if the customers initiates store
>> checkout

4.b. ... You must also separate the Google Checkout checkout process
from your existing checkout process. If buyers initiate your existing
checkout process, they must not see a Google Checkout button.

>> - must land the customer on Google page within 1 second after button
>> is clicked with no intermediate page

4.d. Direct buyers quickly to Google

To avoid shopping cart abandonment, you must ensure that buyers who
click the Google Checkout button on your site see the Google Checkout
confirmation page within one second, and without seeing any
intermediate pages.

>> - must make Google checkout available at least 95% of the time

4.g. Google Checkout must be available as a checkout option at least
95% of the time

Google Checkout may be unsupported no more than 5% of the time, in
which case you are required to display the \u2018not available\u2019
button as described in 4f. At least 95% of the time, Google Checkout
must be offered as a checkout option, with the standard Google
Checkout button prominently displayed.

>> - if shipping and tax are calculated dynamically, must provide backup
>> rates and stick to them (no settlement tolerance)

This is the second optional item:

2.e. Provide reasonable backup shipping and tax rates

When a Merchant Calculation request from Google times out, Google
Checkout defaults to displaying backup tax and shipping rates that you
specify in the shopping cart XML. We strongly recommend that you
specify backup rates that are reasonable and approximate your average
shipping and tax charges.

In summary, the only two items I listed which aren't explicit
requirements are:

- cannot send their own order confirmation e-mails
- if shipping and tax are calculated dynamically, must provide backup
rates and stick to them (no settlement tolerance)

That's not much of a delta.

The following quote is out of order:

> Also, there is no comparison of PayPal and Google here, just an
> inference that Google's terms are worse. Until someone actually
> compares the T&Cs this inference is meaningless at best and
> intentionally biased at worst.

I have little interest, obligation or reason to be fair. My expectation
is that others more interested than me in the PayPal side will vouch for
and support that side. In PayPal's case the comparison is also a little
more difficult in that PayPal is a payments provider rather than a
commerce provider. I'm also lazy. PayPal doesn't currently seem to
make such a comparison easy.

The competing product appears to be "Websites Payment Standard":

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-standard-overview-outside
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-comparison
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-standard-feature-list-outside

Fairly obviously a richer solution set than Google's but that's by the
by (recurring payments, subscriptions, shipping, additional funding
sources, reporting, emailed bills, non-US currencies etc). The
effective use contracts that seem to govern it are:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_biz-outside
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_shops-outside
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_payments-outside

So far I've found almost nothing to compare to the above list off
Google's T&C. I'm sure there's also a document somewhere controlling
use and display of the PayPal mark, but I'm not found it yet. I do note
that PayPal explicitly dates all their contracts whereas Google provides
no indication of version or change date.

Yep. In fact PayPal originally tried similar restrictions and was soundly refused by the merchants.

As a buyer I might prefer Google's weaker chargeback protections for merchants, but only if I intended to screw merchants out of money. As a buyer I also like the ability to fund transactions directly from my bank account via ACH transfers and stored balance. Google doesn't do that, PayaPal does.

That was last year. I've been playing manager since then, tho in a field that has nothing to do with Google's offering or PayPal's reaction. As my resume shows, I'm also a startup baby -- PayPal is a convenient waystop before the next startup for me.

What passion I have for the area mostly derives from the fact that I think Google is offering a deceptively lousy product for SMB merchants (very easy integration and extremely limited CRM), when those merchants are also the ones most desperate for cost containment. It is a damned if you do damned if you don't relationship, and that hardly jibes with Google's slogan.

My main use for PayPal is game orders from European stores (Adam Spielt etc), and that's but a few times a year. I gave up on EBay when they changed their privacy/security policies about 5 years back.

Yep, I can't fault their web design. Their API design is also rather nice.

My concerns are above. I currently look at Google Checkout as an unwelcome tax on smaller entrepreneurs.

This is what is known as a "hosted shopping cart", with a number of nice value added services to differentiate their product (not all hosted shopping carts do this) and in this particular case to target them at the small end of the market. I don't mention this in any way to detract from Kagi (I've heard other good reports on them), but rather to provide what may be a useful search term for someone looking to research the area for vendors fitting their needs.