Google Wallet May Compete With Paypal

theskeptic writes "According to the WSJ, Google plans to offer an electronic-payment service that could help the Internet-search company diversify its revenue and may heighten competition with eBay's PayPal unit. Codenamed Google Wallet, a payment service could represent a significant expansion beyond online advertising, which generated 99% of its $3.2 billion in revenue last year. Google's move could potentially threaten eBay's successful PayPal service, which generated $233.1 million, or 23% of eBay's revenue in the first quarter."

Too late

www.gwallet.com is currently owned by a domain squatter.

Re:Too late

They'll go wallet.google.com anyway.

good, paypal needs competition

Having used paypal and ebay when selling, I know well that the fees and such add up quickly when using these services. I didnt even use all the special junk they try to push on you like bold headings, gallery etc and I still wound up paying 11 dollars to sell a 75 dollar item...thats robbery. Hopefully this google wallet will make paypal's credit card use fees come back down to earth.

I agree - I look forward to Google Wallet

I agree with you, I look forward to a viable alternative to paypal. I am not please with Paypal after having had a false charge back happen against me, and being pinged for an aditional $10.00 as well as losing the original money. Paypal sucks [paypalsucks.com] has more horror stories too, and I offer some advice if you have to do business with paypal:

• Make sure your checking account is deposit only. You can have this specified in writing, but another way is to have the account be joint co-signed so both parties have to sign to take something out if you have a significant other. This way paypal cannot take money out of your account (which in the terms of service last time I saw you give them permission to take money out of your account to settle balances with them).
• Keep a minimum amount of money in your paypal account.

Since google seems to be holding to its 'do not evil' policy they should make a for good competitor with customers fed up with paypal. I wouldn't mind seeing a google auction site to compete with ebay (Paypal's owner) as well :).

Re:I agree - I look forward to Google Wallet

Have you tried accepting credit cards directly? You'll still get a $10 fee for chargebacks. *IF* you're not dealing with a high-risk industry, PayPal's not all that bad. I've received hundreds of PayPal shopping cart purchases from customers in 24 countries, and have had only one minor problem.

Yes, they charge more - over 3% on most of my transactions - but there's no monthly fee. I'm just now getting enough sales volume to make it worth switching to a regular merchant account with a 2.02% discount rate (plus $0.27/transaction). PayPal's an easy, low-overhead way to get started.

That said, their customer service sucks big time. Got ripped off by a vendor and discovered that even if you receive an empty package that's good enough for them. They won't do anything to the vendor. And it's damn near impossible to get a human on the phone.

If you're looking to get a merchant account, I'd suggest checking out MerchantPlus.com. I'm only using them for payment gateway service, but they've been very responsive. I had my account set up less than an hour after sending a message, and got an immediate response to support questions. I can't say the same for most of the other outfits I checked with.

A lot of it comes down to the customers you're dealing with. Some people are never satisfied, and in certain industries you can expect people to try to rip you off. Caveat vendor.

Re:I agree - I look forward to Google Wallet

No but paypal often locks up entire accounts over a complaint. So if you frequently keep hundreds of dollars in your account, you could be royally screwed and put out of buisness over one false complaint. So you funnel the money into another account as quickly as you can and don't let paypal take it out.

Re:good, paypal needs competition

Not to mention that they force things on you that you don't want and blame YOU when they fuck up. They offered a "Pay with your bank account" service(mostly so they could get away from the high credit card fees but still charge the recipient), I didn't want to use it though, so I chose to pay with my credit card. However, they chose to use a bank account in which I had the minimum balance in(I kept it around in case I needed a loan from the bank as they have cheap rates for members). So then I got a message from paypal saying that there were insufficient funds and used my Discover card to cover it. Furthermore, they were going to retry in 2 days(I don't know why, I paid the god damn money). I was away from my email for a few days and didn't notice it, by the time I did I had over $80 in fees from the bank. Fortunately my bank forgave the fees but I closed down my paypal account right away.

The worst part about it was that when I called up customer service to complain, they blamed me. I tried to tell them that in fact I am not a moron and made sure to pay with my card(since I never wanted the bank account service in the first place) but they continued to blame me. Not to mention the manager was a real ass......I hope they die a quick death

Re:good, paypal needs competition

PayPal does indeed blow. This is coming from someone who has used it as a small merchant and as a buyer.

As a merchant, I was more than a little peeved when I used the method of buying from myself and immediately refunding payments, as their manual suggested, and they processed the payments anyways (days later) against a checking account. Ok, so the manual didn't mention that they will still process cancelled transactions... fine. I called them to get it straightened out (really to let them know they should say that in the manual) and I was actually yelled at, and then hung up on. I couldn't believe this. I said screw em, and had my bank reverse the charges as fraudulent withdrawls and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau who has regular meetings with the fucks at PayPal.

As a buyer I have had all kinds of problems as well. I personally can't wait for Google to become the standard... even if I DO normally worry about Google branching out. We're in desperate need of an alternative.

Re:good, paypal needs competition

Yeah, the fees shocked me the first couple of times. They sound okay in thoery, but when they actually hit, you realize how bad they are.

I hope this works out, but I'm wondering how long it will take to become widespread. I'm not really sure how much I would use it. I mean, I use it for a couple of small sites, and donations, but other than that it's pretty much just for eBay. Oh well, I'm sure someone will find a good use for it.

I'm amazed Google is going with something that can't be in Beta.

Wallet?

How about Goopay? Goopal? Paygoo? Palgoo? Paygle? Paygle?

Re:Wallet?

Rooble.

Competition is a good thing....

I had an eBayer complain about a transaction and PayPal did not just set aside the amount of the sale which was small - they locked out my entire account which had a ripple affect with other auctions I was running. By the time I was exonerated I had taken a beating. I am not opposed to competition if it might reduce some of this heavy handed behavior.

Coming soon: GBay?

With Google coming up with their own PayPal, they're halfway to coming up with a full eBay-killer auction site. Imagine being able to create an auction that'd show up whenever somebody searches Google for the product's name....

Cool!

Now Google can store my e-mail, remember my searches, know who all my friends are, know where I'm driving, and know all my finances :-D

Good job!

This seems reasonable...

Provided Google can somehow use their branding to reflect reliability, security, and stability -- I'd trust them with money. Feed the fear about paypal's insecurities and you've got yourself a deal.

Perhaps a business link through Froogle could prove beneficial, too. You know, "preferred customer" type scenario.

In the end, though, I really do think we should start worrying about the amount of information Google collects. Searches, identity, e-mails, and with this thing, buying trends and other financial information. Yeah, we love 'em...but their capacity for evil is growing and becoming a bit more scary.

Google v. eBay

How long until google branches out to the point where they're in direct competition with eBay. From google wallet to google auction.

You get to use google's extra-spiffy search features to find exactly what you're looking for. Plus, google would probably be able to create something 10x less cumbersome and akward than ebay's interface.

Ties to Froogle?

If Google's going this way, it might be just as easy to tie it into the Froogle service: let people find the item they want, then pay for it from the same interface.

In time, they could introduce their own eBay like system. Odds are, eBay won't just let Google Wallet into their system and people would have to do payments manually (they way they used to with Paypal). But if Google builds off of Froogle and inserts themselves as a middleman, it would be an effective way of getting extra revenue and balancing out their ad system.

Just a random thought - naturally, I could be wrong.

I really hope they go through with that

I *really* hope they go through with that. So far, PayPal has what is pretty much a monopoly on online payments; there's alternatives like Moneybookers, but few people even know about them, and PayPal has consistently and systematically abused its monopoly by imposing more and more unreasonable restrictions.

Two that annoy me the most, personally are the fact that you can't use it for "adult" transactions, and that it's quite limited with regard to how you can get your own money that sits in your own account in many countries outside of the USA. In fact, there is a list of countries where the only available option is transferring the money to a US-based bank account - which really is ridiculous when you think about it. It may not matter much to the average US citizen, of course, but think about it - what would you say if you found out that the online payment service you used to have people pay for the stuff you sold on eBay only allows you to transfer the money to a bank account in - say - Uruguay?

PayPal's policies are consistent with those of eBay, though (its mother company nowadays); like eBay, PayPal is entirely inconsiderate of its users, a stark contrast to Google's "do no evil" philosophy.

Let's hope that Google will revolutionize online payments the same way they revolutionized searching, and let's also hope that PayPal will soon be just as forgotten as Hotbot, Northernlight, Mamma and all the search engines we used before Google was there.

Finally!

Finally!

It's about damn time a company with a reputation like Google's got into this area. I hate PayPal with a passion; they wouldn't accept one of my credit cards for an online payment (there were no other choices for the site I was paying), so I contacted their support. Guess how that went? Long story short, two automated emails and one "we won't help you" email over a few weeks. They don't want to help you, they just want your money. Also check out the horror stories of frozen accounts floating around the web.

Another guide to these type of sites is how many hoops you have to jump through to actually contact them. Try it, drop by and click through. See how long it takes to contact someone.

Anyway, sub-rant over. Imagine how a company like google could shake up this area. It's about time a reputable company came in and did a good job. Maybe even micropayments or something similar in the future? I imagine online comic creators would love that one. :)

Small or Micropayments would be nice

If you send a couple bucks via PayPal, even if the sender has a positive account balance (i.e. no CC transaction costs exist), the fees are quite hefty, percentage wise. (The minimum transaction fee is USD 0.3).

It would be really nice to get a break on small transactions, especially ones that don't incur CC costs.

And Google become regulated...

Getting into payment systems will expose Google to new levels of regulation that may affect user's privacy. Regulations related money laundering and anti-terrorist laws may force Google to collect and turn-over data on users of its payment service. I wonder if those rules might also force Google to turn-over other data on "customers of interest".

Having all your information (your banking, your email, your internet search activities) in one basket makes it a tempting target for government.

What!

Google wants my wallet! The next thing they want will be my first born. Sheesh... I thought Microsft was bad; they only wanted my soul.

natural progression

Google basically made it's own micropayment transaction system internally to handle the accounting of google adwords and adsense revenue changing hands in millions of transactions every day.

They just needed to take the next logical step with it.

e.

Re: Flamebait?

> A lot of you won't like to hear it... But isn't google trying to get a monopoly on everything that is on our planet?

They may turn out to be the Microsoft of the internet era. However, so far they haven't shown signs of being a great evil, and their stuff isn't crap.

Re:A sneak preview...

Who decides if Google is an advertising company or a search company? *What* decides it? Revenue or what most people use their services for? Don't Google still do good in helping people find what they're looking for above being ad-toting corporate concentrated evil?

'Selling me to companies' is ridiculous - Google has been one of the biggest players in the market of bringing ad spots to ordinary people. Anyone can buy AdWords for a paltry sum, and all they use is keywords - from your search or from the web page you're visiting. I don't see where this tips over from handy way to finance the other aspects of one's company to evil big brother attitude.

Is it the cookies? Block the cookies. Is it the ads? Block the ads. The 427 text ads crack is blown up for a quick laugh - I've never seen any Gmail page show me more than four *text-based* ads and Google have been consistently good at not getting ads get in the way of or distract from the actual content - with the only possible exceptions being the blue boxed "sponsored links" at the top of some search results. I find the ads on Slashdot, for example, to be more annoying and more in-my-face.

Speaking of Gmail, I'm okay with their computers scanning my correspondence for keywords. That's what they do - scan emails for keywords. Nothing else. The Google servers aren't secretly reading my emails, and if I would ever click those ads then it would at least be ads related to what I'm reading about or writing about at the time and thusly be much less annoying. I appreciate that.

(To knee-jerkers: Go ahead and call me a Google apologist or a Google fanboy or what have you if you want to. But refute my facts, refute my point of view, challenge my opinions and *back it all up* before you even think about sticking a label on me. Wouldn't you be mad if I blew you off as a "conspiracy theorist" or "corporate-hating hippie" and left it at that?)