Here’s Google’s email reply to a request for Conversion Tracking with Google checkout:
…As for persisting analytics tracking, that’s something that isn’t possible with the way Checkout currently works. However, we’ve heard loud and clear from many merchants that this is something that we need to somehow enable. We have nothing to announce at this time, but we’re working on some things to address this particular problem…
Hopefully sooner, rather than later.
What happens when you violate theses #3 of the Cluetrain Manifesto.. “Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice,” is you end up with WalMart.com’s “Hub”
WalMart is trying, and failing miserably, to jump on the Myspace.com bandwagon by building their own social networking site. They’re the annoying kid who always tries to interject in your conversation with one his own experiences that is in no way relevant to the discussion you were having. Not much social networking that’s going to happen in that environment.
Here’s an excerpt from Bob Garfield’s review at AdAge:
Here’s a sample Hub post from “Holly” — who happens not to be a random Hubster, but a child actress with grown-up ghostwriters. Bad grown-up ghostwriters. (Warning: If you are squeamish seeing others embarrass themselves, this would be a good time to turn the page.)
“Shopping will be my number ONE hobby this fall. I am going to be the most fashionable teen at school! I’ll be on the lookout for the latest fashions. From leggings to layers, to boots and flats, big belts and headbands! I’ll be looking for it all! Layering is SO IN right now. Hobo bags are also in style. OH! And big sunglasses! WHOO!! I don’t know where to stop! With all of the new clothes I’ll be getting, the kids at school will be begging me for fashion tips! “
It won’t be long before executives at WalMart report to the board that that social networking concept sweeping the internet is just a crock and has no basis for longevity in the “real” world.
It’s sites like the Hub that are really clogging the tubes.
I’m not normally one to brag about my kids, but I love this video of my 1 year old, Emily. She loves to dance and she loves to spin around and make herself dizzy.
One thing that has changed is the new Google Checkout. We’ve been working with GC (Gbuy as it was known in beta) for a while now. I really like the UI for the customer experience. Checkout is easy and pretty much painless.
On our backend, it is pretty straightforward and foolproof. Just a series of XML passing back and forth between us and Google updating the order status and injecting orders into our backend.
It has a lot more legs than MS Passport and I think it will prove to be a value add for Ecommerce in general, and particularly the consumer.
Having said all that, here are my issues:
Once a customer places an order, there is no way to edit the order. If the customer requests expedited shipping after the order was placed, you have to either give it (expedited shipping) away at no additional charge, or cancel the order and reprocess it in your internal order management system.
When an order is placed by the customer, their credit card/debit card is authorized to ensure available funds, and to hold such available funds. If the order is not charged within 3 days, Google will re-authorize the card and then capture the funds, resulting in 2 auths and a capture. This presents problems for debit card owners over weekends and holidays. Google stated that they are working on this to extend the timeframe for re-auth.
Orders tend to get in a state of “reviewing”, meaning the funds have not been authorized and the merchant cannot process the order, quite often. It seems these orders are being subject to a manual review. Based on customer feedback, I think this happens more often when the original auth fails and the customer has to go back and edit the credit card information.
Google has a Payment Guarantee Policy that should cover fraud as Google performs the AVS and CVN matches and doesn’t give the merchant any additional billing information. Some orders have a full match on the AVS and CVN, but Google still denies their eligibility for the Payment Guarantee Policy.
From Google:
“Google relies on a variety of proprietary systems–including internal data sources and advanced risk modeling–to evaluate the risk levels associated with transactions. If the risk level for a particular transaction is too high, Google will not cover the transaction under the Payment Guarantee Policy.”
These orders are still covered under the Chargeback Resolution Policy, but that does not guarantee you will receive your funds back for chargebacks.
The last drawback I’ll talk about, and it is big, is that there is no way to persist your website metrics through checkout. We use Omniture analytics and there is no way to report that a visitor that used Google checkout completed a transaction. There’s not even a way to use Google adwords conversion tracking in Google checkout. This results in a low conversion rate whereby, we have to do manual ‘cipherin’ to figure out the true conversion. I hope Google allows us to place code on the “thank you” page in the near future as this is a real pain in the ass.
Overall though, I think the product is great. Although it may be in beta for the next 3-5 years, they’ve already made some strong improvements to the product. I have high hopes for the future.
Wow, its been a really long time since I’ve updated… My mind has been elsewhere on the job hunt at hand. A lot has happened since my last post. I’ll try to catch up over the next few posts…
Brandon
Inspired Impressions 