Google Checkout Help

[RuralWeb]

GC has been integrated in Actinic before - there are a series of posts on how to do it that were posted about this time last year.

[TraceyHand]

I wonder if it would not just be possible to simply create a Google Checkout script and add Google Checkout in some way or even simply replace an unused PSP script with the Google Checkout one?

the problem with this is that GC stipulate that customers should NOT be asked for their details within the merchant store itself so, like Paypal Express (or whichever one it is) GC acts as the whole checkout process and NOT like a PSP/alternative payment method.

It also then has to relay the details BACK from GC to Actinic itself (customer details etc)

I'm assuming this is what makes it a different integration process to other PSPs.

Google also don't allow merchants to offer GC as a 'payment method' per se.
They will complain (if they realise, of course) if they think you're offering it like a PSP, taking customers details and then either sending them to GC or requesting GC payment via invoice.(I was wrongly accused of this at one point)

I'm not defending the lack of integration, mind you. I'm guessing it's a bit of a taboo subject at Actinic Towers...

[pinbrook]

GC seems quite clumsy when integrated on other sites i've seen, very similar to the PPP integration. ie they insist on their own add to cart buttons all over the place which makes it quite confusing.

I'd love to see a site that has both GC and PPP checkouts integrated wit hthe resultant mayhem

[Darren B]

I tried it on a couple of best selling products, items that sold on there own, but it was pointless, shipping charges are a problem.

I personally dont think GC is that great, i would like to have a fully intergrated version to be able to make a decision on how it performs compared to a real PSP, but having played with it i undrstand that this is never going to be easy and probably not look nice as Jo has mentioned.

D

[Ginnys Attic]

the problem with this is that GC stipulate that customers should NOT be asked for their details within the merchant store itself so, like Paypal Express (or whichever one it is) GC acts as the whole checkout process and NOT like a PSP/alternative payment method.

It also then has to relay the details BACK from GC to Actinic itself (customer details etc)

I'm assuming this is what makes it a different integration process to other PSPs.

So basically to get Google Checkout to function all that is required is some code added to Checkout Page 0 prior to the customer entering any personal details similar to PayPal Express which passes the required products data and values, taxes and shipping to Google Checkout (using the Merchant Calculations API we can submit the totals rather than Google calculating them).

The only other issue would be getting the customer and order details back from Google Checkout to Actinic itself, this is probably more complex but as a temporary solution surely we could just login to Google Checkout and retrieve the details the same way you would a PayPal eBay order once we receive the confirmation of order and payment email from Google?

[pinbrook]

surely we could just login to Google Checkout and retrieve the details the same way you would a PayPal eBay order ?

there's one problem already as larger shops do not want to have any manual phase to their processes.

if its going to be integrated it needs to be integrated 100%

[Duncan Rounding]

...The only other issue would be getting the customer and order details back from Google Checkout to Actinic itself...

I think 'only' is somewhat of an understatement. Back office integration is the problem - invoicing, stock control, reporting, record keeping, VAT, delivery charges - these are many of the issues involved.

The 'integration' that is detailed elsewhere on the forum shows how this front end was achieved by another forum member which, IIFC, had a number of caveats as well because of the modifications required for the perl scripts.

If you just wanted to add GC with no backend then you could just place a link against each product as you can with Paypal.

[TraceyHand]

If you just wanted to add GC with no backend then you could just place a link against each product as you can with Paypal.

which is what I do on a select number of 'well stocked' products.
Can only work for single item orders..but I have a fairly reasonable pick up from it.
It does become an 'offline' order in Actinic though so you do, obviously, have to factor in the extra time taken to process each order etc as well as not being able to add multiple products to create larger orders.
It's far from ideal...was just an experiment that I decided to carry on with, tbh.
It makes work..but it gains customers who can effectively 'one click' order rather than trawling their way through the checkout process in Actinic.

[Ginnys Attic]

there's one problem already as larger shops do not want to have any manual phase to their processes.

if its going to be integrated it needs to be integrated 100%

Very true but that means relying on Actinic which just isn't looking like it is going to happen this Millennium and surely manually processing any Google Checkout Orders has to be better than the nothing Actinic have managed to proivde in the last 14+ months even though Admins have previously posted that Actinic were working on a quicker way to integrate Google Checkout and besides that surely any laregr shops wanting 100% integration wouldn't be using Actinic in the first place because it falls over flat on it's back with many issues not least the seemingly non essential lack of stock control.

(24-Apr-2007)We have taken the request on board and although we have previously investigated a "full" Google Checkout integration (it's a huge amount of work), we are now looking to see if there is a quicker way of getting Google Checkout going.

There's certainly nothing quick about 14+ months and nothing happening is there?

I did notice in the thread (http://community.actinic.com/showthr...t=29055&page=7) that a solution was posted by brightlight and looking at one of there sites (which uses Actinic http://www.tv-wall-brackets.co.uk and has Google Checkout as a payment option) before i look further at the in's and out's of Google Checkout i was wondering if anyone had actually tried the code posted?

[cbarling]

Fair comment re my posting in April last year.

This is what happened. There had been suggestions on the community on how GC could be integrated easily into Actinic and I was hoping (expecting) that we could use these suggestions. In the event, this wasn't possible (from memory) because of Google's rules. Sorry that I didn't post that back.

We originally didn't integrate GC because of the large amount of work. It's now quite a bit less for several reasons, including the fact that we have experience in integrating GC into Express and some of the work done for Actinic Payments can be re-used (SHA1 encryption).

From memory, the big problem that remains is that GC requires some order progress information that is only available on the desktop. Hence the development also requires some new interfaces to allow information to be sent from the desktop via the web site.

Chris

[pinbrook]

Very true but that means relying on Actinic which just isn't looking like it is going to happen this Millennium and surely manually processing any Google Checkout Orders has to be better than the nothing Actinic have managed to proivde in the last 14+ months even though Admins have previously posted that Actinic were working on a quicker way to integrate Google Checkout and besides that surely any laregr shops wanting 100% integration wouldn't be using Actinic in the first place because it falls over flat on it's back with many issues not least the seemingly non essential lack of stock control.

it isn't realistic or a good business model to incorporate a feature that is only useful to a subset of shop owners.

We could add that the reverse is true, smaller shop owners who want GC can just as easily use a different cart. There are a lot of small, mid and larger stores for whom a manual process is not cost effective therefore if actiic are going to introduce GC it must be done properly.

There are plenty of posts from last year detailing how to incorporate it on indivual products and process manually.

[Ginnys Attic]

Fair comment re my posting in April last year.
This is what happened. There had been suggestions on the community on how GC could be integrated easily into Actinic and I was hoping (expecting) that we could use these suggestions. In the event, this wasn't possible (from memory) because of Google's rules. Sorry that I didn't post that back.

We originally didn't integrate GC because of the large amount of work. It's now quite a bit less for several reasons, including the fact that we have experience in integrating GC into Express and some of the work done for Actinic Payments can be re-used (SHA1 encryption).

From memory, the big problem that remains is that GC requires some order progress information that is only available on the desktop. Hence the development also requires some new interfaces to allow information to be sent from the desktop via the web site.

Chris

Thanks Chris, is there actually any realistic hope in the near future of Google Checkout integration or is it simply a pipe dream for Actinic users and never going to materialise?

it isn't realistic or a good business model to incorporate a feature that is only useful to a subset of shop owners.

We could add that the reverse is true, smaller shop owners who want GC can just as easily use a different cart. There are a lot of small, mid and larger stores for whom a manual process is not cost effective therefore if actiic are going to introduce GC it must be done properly.

There are plenty of posts from last year detailing how to incorporate it on indivual products and process manually.

brightlight (http://www.tv-wall-brackets.co.uk) has Google Checkout as a payment option integrated within an Actinic store very nicely, it would be interesting to hear back from them to see if they managed to integrate this in to the Actinic backend at all.

A lot of very large and busy companies manage and find it cost effective to process eBay/Amazon Marketplace orders in addition to running a very busy website, we managed with 50-100 orders a day to process additional eBay orders without any hassle throughout the Christmas period so I can't really see how processing a Google Checkout order would overly be a problem.

[Ginnys Attic]

Anyway just incase anyone following the thread is interested i've tried the code posted by brightlight here - http://community.actinic.com/showthr...t=29055&page=7 and it works so although not full the 100% integration we would like and hope Actinic will finally provide it is a start and would at least enable Actinic sites to use Google Checkout as a PSP if required.

[cbarling]

> is there actually any realistic hope in the near future of Google Checkout integration

I very much hope so. There's never been a more contentious topic either internally or externally. We need to put it to bed.

Chris

[cdicken]

OK - I have hacked this thread right back into the interesting, useful and relevant parts of the discussion (i.e deleted most of it).

Can we please not let this happen again.