Google Checkout module for ZC 1.3.x (beta)

[ctcentralinfo]

I am trying to get the button that says $10 on it to show up on my sites. I have Google checkout set up, but when I go to my Google account I only see sandbox. I do have customers who have bought from me and I am able to access Google checkout via the link from their purchase. Do I have it set up right?

[Woodymon]

BlessIsaacola, how do you get the $10 bonus showing up on your GoogleCheckout button? Mine shows the regular button.

Are you using your production merchant account or sandbox? You need your production merchant account for the promo button to work.

It appears that the button style is determined by your merchant account. I have the exact same URL for my button as does BlessIsaacola (except for the merchant number) and my button does not display the $10 off style button.

BlessIsaacola, did you have to sign up with Google for any special promotions?

Here's an answer.
http://groups.google.com/group/googl...019e1e5c8ac29e

And ropu you are suppose to be on a one-week holiday. Not just a vacation from the Zen Cart community

Woody

[Woodymon]

I am trying to get the button that says $10 on it to show up on my sites.

See post above. And only applies to production account.

I have Google checkout set up, but when I go to my Google account I only see sandbox.I do have customers who have bought from me and I am able to access Google checkout via the link from their purchase. Do I have it set up right?

It must be set-up for you to access real "live" purchase info. You have TWO "Sellers" accounts, one is the Live/Production account and one is the Sandbox account (for testing).

Login URL's are:
Sellers Sandbox: https://sandbox.google.com/checkout/sell
Sellers Live Account: http://checkout.google.com/sell

Hope this helps,
Woody

[BlessIsaacola]

Here's an answer.
http://groups.google.com/group/googl...019e1e5c8ac29e

And ropu you are suppose to be on a one-week holiday. Not just a vacation from the Zen Cart community

Woody

Woody,

Thanks for posting this. I didn't actually know that there are requirements but judging from the link you posted I can see why we are listed now. I just noticed that we are listed here as well http://www.google.com/checkout/m.html I am definitely glad to see us there. Interestingly enough, I looked in our log for this year for referrers and now I understand why 70% of our customers have chosen google checkout (because they came from that page).

By the way, sorry Woody I was unable to test for you today. One of our computer hard-drive crashed and I was doing data recovery before Dell shows up to replace it.

[Woodymon]

I didn't actually know that there are requirements but judging from the link you posted I can see why we are listed now.

So it sounds like you did not request to have promotion and Google did not contact you? So they must be scanning sites on the lookout for sites that meet their "Buyers Experience" criteria and unilaterally applying the discount. It's great they are going your customers nice promotion but I would have thought they would have at the very least sent you a "courtesy" message indicating they have applied the promotion to your shop. next thing they will do is give away all your products for free without you knowing it

II just noticed that we are listed here as well http://www.google.com/checkout/m.html I am definitely glad to see us there. Interestingly enough, I looked in our log for this year for referrers and now I understand why 70% of our customers have chosen google checkout (because they came from that page).

Good info. And good to see that Google Checkout is working out well for you. Hopefully me too soon

By the way, sorry Woody I was unable to test for you today. One of our computer hard-drive crashed and I was doing data recovery before Dell shows up to replace it.

Hope you get your system back up an running quickly. I now use Acronis True Image to image my personal workstation hard drives once a week (also an Enterprise version is available). I've had too much down time due to past disk failures. TI has saved me much time and frustration when HD's go down.

And no sweat about testing my shipping configuration. If you have the opportunity tand time hen cool. But if not don't worry about it. I'm doing much reading/digesting of material on the the Dev and API Forums and peaking in at OSC GC integration forum. As Doug stated shipping is number one GC integration issue.

GC is still Beta, and the API is still maturing, but overall is getting better.
Ropu is doing a great job with the integration effort, but there is still much work that needs done before Google Checkout competes with PayPal payment products (from both buyer and seller perspective and also in regards to shop cart integration). Thinking the free discount fees for this year, and the buyer promotions are not only a method to hopefully and quickly gain market share, but also a gesture/thanks for putting up with the ongoing Level 2 integration issues and for being a beta tester.

I've yet to compare Google Checkout integration with PayPal Express integration. After I get Google Checkout working half-way decently on ZC, testing PPE on ZC will be my next journey.

Woody

[Woodymon]

Regards to emails sent by Google Checkout to (both Buyer & Seller/admin). We do all our email in text (not HTML). The text email messages we receive back from Google Checkout are not well formatted messages and very difficult to read.

1. Adding simple line breaks to the email template would fix most of the text formatting issues.

2. Could the "From" and Reply-To email address for the messages sent out by Google be configured with our shop (sellers) email address? And then allow customers to respond to the email message. Stating "Please do not reply to this message." is VERY BAD customer service and will turn off our customers!!!

3. Also at the bottom of message I observe: "Have questions about this order? Contact SellerName".

Besides the SellerName it would also be good to include the sellers email address.

4. On the test "buyers" shipping status message which I received, I observe the address under "Purchased From" is only half correct. That is only street number but not the street name is included. (might be a problem with my account set-up at Google, will check into it).

5. Need a location for the buyer to enter "Attn To:" when submitting order, and then if entered by customer, display Attn To: within the "Ship to:: address.

6. Ability to remove "Shipping Tracking line" in the email message.

7. Method to include Shop (Zen Cart) order number as well as Google Order number.

8. Shipping Status label and the word Shipped are not adjacent to each other.

9. Itemize each ordered product on it's own item line (item qty, item price, total amt for the line).
Then a dashed line (separator)
Then a SUBTOTAL line.
Then a S&H line.
Then a Tax line (if applies...keep in mind some locales charge S&H before tax, others after tax).
Then a dashed line (separator)
Then the TOTAL line (Emphasize IN CAPS).

10. Remove "(includes Tax (State) $0.00)" from Total line and move to under SubTotal as above. And for locales that don't apply tax, remove Tax line altogether.

11. In email to buyers, add a URL link to Buyers Account login, adjacent to "Check the status of this order anytime in your Google Account".

12. Best to look at how Zen Cart formats customer and admin email messages (for both HTML and text formats). And check out how PayPal IPN does it and emulate. no need to reinvent the wheel here.


Below I've ADDED line breaks and improved formatting of the Order "Status" change email message which Buyers currently receive. Hopefully similar formatting can be incorporated into future GC ZC integration:


Purchased from:
FNAME LNAME
Street Address
City ST POSTALCODE
COUNTRY

Ship to:
FNAME LNAME
Street Address
City ST POSTALCODE
COUNTRY

Hello FNAME,

Great news! Your order has shipped, and should arrive soon. Your credit card has successfully been charged for this order.

Track USPS package #n/a

Order Details - DATE - TIME TZ-00:00
Google Order #123456789012345

Shipping Status:
Qty Item Price <<<< This line is out of sequence and needs moved down!!!!
Shipped

ITEM_QTY ITEM_NAME $ITEM_PRICE
Shipping & Handling (Shipping Method) : $SHIP_AMT
Total: $TOTAL_AMT (includes Tax (Zone) $TAX_AMT)

Check the status of this order anytime in your Google Account.

Have questions about this order? Contact SELLER_NAME

Need help? Visit the Google Checkout help center. Please do not reply to this message. ©2007 Google

--
Thanks,
Woody

[BlessIsaacola]

It's great they are going your customers nice promotion but I would have thought they would have at the very least sent you a "courtesy" message indicating they have applied the promotion to your shop. next thing they will do is give away all your products for free without you knowing it .Woody

Woody,

Google is paying the customer the $10. It doesn't cost us a dime. The customer checkout from our site and if they qualify, they get free $10 from Google. It was supposed to expire 3/31/07 but Google extended it to 5/15/07. Google should keep the promotion through 12/26/07

We haven't let the limitation of this mod stop us from using it. We use manual process and online notification or email to deal with its limitation. It's not ideal but it appears that our customers are willing to put up with some of the nuances for free $10 from Google :)

Google Checkout is definitely not even close to being "there yet" but it has made a significant difference to our business. Usually January is a slow month for us but this year because of Google promotion, we had the best January ever.

Please send me via PM information about mitigating drive crashes that you mentioned. We do daily backups but definitely not everything we should back up so I am tighting things up a bit.

I think I am going to take a break a bit from "technology" my head is spinning.

[Woodymon]

Google is paying the customer the $10. It doesn't cost us a dime.

Of course and well understood. ;-)

The point I was making (or trying to make with a little humour) is Google added a significant feature to your service without any notification. Or at least it sounded like you were not informed.

Yes, please take a break for me too! I have too much more work to do before I get (deserve) hoilday.

Woody

[Woodymon]

Some more relevant links:

Release Notes for Google Checkout Developer's Guide
http://code.google.com/apis/checkout...ase_notes.html

Google Checkout API
http://code.google.com/apis/checkout/index.html

XML API Developer's Guide
http://code.google.com/apis/checkout...per/index.html

Google Checkout API Blog
http://googlecheckoutapi.##########################/

[BlessIsaacola]

Of course and well understood. ;-)

The point I was making (or trying to make with a little humour) is Google added a significant feature to your service without any notification. Or at least it sounded like you were not informed.

Yes, please take a break for me too! I have too much more work to do before I get (deserve) hoilday.

Woody

Ah I see your point! But honestly I don't mind the free traffic or added sales. I will take free traffic/sales any day without been notified. If the sale is too much that it's affecting operations, at least we will have money to hire help. It's about time google give something for free considering all the money I've spent on Google AdWords :)

The feature google added have no chance of negatively affecting the google button or our business (which perhaps may be the reason for Google not notifying us).

I was just thinking Yahoo charges $299 per year to list a site in their directory and google basically provided a link from a pagerank of 7 for free. Not a bad deal!

I can't wait until Google Checkout is fully functional...there is a good potential for GCO!