Google Groups Home
Help | Sign in
Recent pages and files
new-feature-suggestions-for-google-checkout    

Would it be possible to be able to turn off customer reviews? My clients use the system for deposits and balance due, and it's annoying for them to get the customer review twice.

 ---------------------------------------

 

Update: August 26, 2008

The following feature suggestions have been removed from this document, since they are now available in Google Checkout. For each feature suggestions listed below, a link is included where where you can find more details.

  • More Branding Options? I know one of the strengths of Google checkout is leveraging the Google brand, but basically every other third-party "checkout" lets you at least slap your logo somewhere.

    Custom Logo/co-branded Merchant Logo - Allow Merchants to "Co-brand" their images(logos) on GoogleCheckout.  This is already done by at least www.buy.com and www.ritzcamera.com.  It is odd that I can do this if I implement the "Search" mechanism for my site using Google Search - but I haven't been able to find a way to do this. 
    • Placing your company logo on the Google Checkout page is something that we can provide for merchants with an excellent history of customer satisfaction.  You can apply to have your logo uploaded by contacting us via this form  

  • Sale of digital products:- after purchase, send user back to site to be able to view or download their goods. current system very much geared towards sale of physical items. I sell reports, in the form of pdf files. I would like users to be returned to my site after they have made a purchase so that they can download the file they have bought, which is generated immediately after purchase. Just a level 1 integration with a return url would do the trick.
    • Key/URL digital delivery allows you to do this. You can specify the download URL (which can be a URL on your website) using Key/URL delivery. 
  • Non-profit Donation Button - have a button phrased "Give" or "Donate" instead of "Buy" available. The suggested phrasing of "Donate", "Donation" or "Give" is more appropriate and clear for non-profit use.
    • Donate buttons are now available for non-profits that meet these requirements. Please see this FAQ for information on how to add Donate buttons to your website.
  • Non-profit Open Donation Amount - don't require a hard coded purchase amounts for non-profits You can currently create a "shopping list" of amounts.  However, open donations provide for more flexibility.
    •  See this tutorial for details on how to create Donate buttons with unspecified amounts.
  • Obtain missed messages - An API or web service to obtain a list of missed messages. At this time we must wait for the message to be redelivered and there is no way to know how long that will take. It would be nice to ask them to be resent or to obtain them in the request. 
    • The Notification History API, which is currently in beta, allows you to retrieve previously sent notifications by time range or by order number.
  • Resend Message of Type - Given an Order-Number. Ask the system to redeliver a message to the integration url. Let's say an order has come in, you have received the new-order-confirmation and risk, but not the order-state-change. It would be nice to ask the system to send the current state or last message or order-state-change.
    •  The Notification History API, which is currently in beta, allows you to retrieve previously sent notifications. You can ask for all notifications for an order number, or only a subset of the notification types.

 -Jan (CheckoutDevProJan)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Naive Users testing my cart and checkout system have found the the system a little confusing. After placing an order without loggin in (using, say, their Hotmail address), they have tries to view their order Waht was not evident to them was that they should enter their entire email address (joe@hotmail.com) in the account login box. The box looks the same as the one Google uses to log in to Gmail, where the user enters only his user name. Adding some instructions or examples would be helpful. Some of our customers will not want to set up new accounts and will be discouraged from ordering. Thank you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

I have a few suggestions as i have just switched to production and could have used a few testing features in the merchant center.

 

1) I would like to see a "test connection" button when setting up a callback url. There seems to be no way to test this without making an actual order. i could have used this type of feature because i initially have a SSL probelm (which i never used in sandbox), it would have been great if i could have clicked a button to test my connection to the url i entered without having to make a order...

 

2) At the same time regarding the callback... it would be great if the there was a testing page for the callback that could do the above and also could send test notification xml.... i think this would be helpful for the less tech savy users.

 

Duncan (PS: this page does not work correctly in Firefox 3 beta... )

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I would love it if Online Donations with Google would allow for repeat donations that would be automatically processed.  Donors should be able to specify the frequency of that repeat gift (weekly, monthly, quarterly) and the amount to be charged.


******************************************

Peer to peer payments?!

Could we introduce peer-peer payments. Google would then be a payment gateway and you could send money to other 'Google Checkout' account holders, or anyone with an email address from your own 'Google Checkout' balance. Just like Paypal does. I think this is the major weakness with Google Checkout when comparing it to Paypal....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Google Donate for nonprofits:  Could we have a way of tracking the donations made via GoogleCheckout Donate? A thermometer - or other way of depicting progress of fund raising against the target we hope to achieve would be great.

Thanks!

 

 ==================================================================================================

Could we have a more detailed .CSV report that could include the customer name, address, quantity, items, coupon code used, etc?  This would be so helpful in running the business more efficiently.

 

==================================================================================================

Most Important Features that must implement.

Have the option to Accept credit card via website like what normal
paypal website offer. Some website don't required to register or have
the option

Express checkout or have the option to checkout like normal similar to
paypal

Allow checkout / support for products from multiply location

Invoice - try to make it more details and user friendly which can fill
in like normal invoice such as tax, shipping, etc

The rest of the feature can slowly ADD ! The above must act firs

 

=======================================================================================================

 

 

 

 

 

For non-profits, integrating checkout with adwords... Can we get a Google "Donate" button instead of google "checkout"?  Having the checkout button implies that we charge for our information, which is not true.  See image below for how it looks..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

==================================================================================================================

 

If you support line-item shipping once the items ships, how about supporting line-item shipping when the cart is posted to Google Checkout?

 

We have items shipped from different locations in the country with each location supporting different shipping methods. It would be great if we could group items in the cart that is sent to google checkout and then Google Checkout allows different shipping options for each item group.

 

Best comparison is to Amazon. When you place an order from two different non-Amazon vendors, you're allowed to select the shipping on each package. In that way, I'm suggesting the ability to post a cart to google checkout that allows you to select shipping options per line-item group.

 

 


  

Now that reviews appear in Google Checkout, it would be nice to have a permanent link to those reviews.

  

Currently, the link for the same vendor changes every couple of days or so.

  

 


  

Some countries are missing, like Argentina

 

***Include shipping address in the CSV download, PLEASE!***

 

 

We need the ability to mask/rename the shipping company options.  It would be great if we could change "FedEx Ground" to "Ground", or "USPS Priority Mail" to "Priority Mail" or whatever else we choose.  This will help in case the merchant decides to change shipping companies but doesn't want to explain this to the customer.


 

We need more options such as item_id and maybe even a sub_id to better assist in API development.

 

Ability to purchase postage. Or a multi-order shipping interface like Paypal's.

  

Ability to specify the notification url when sending information about the order.

 

By adding this you can eliminate the problems associated with non technical people entering bad urls into the merchant checkout center, 

 

Would like to see a Google Checkout Express Version

 

Similar to paypal, where the customer only signs into their account and the rest of the transaction is carried out on the merchant site.


Have an equivalent to PayPal Virtual Terminal, to allow phone orders to be taken

 

Until you provide this sort of functionality people will continue to use PayPal.


 

Allow searching of orders by name, date and amount.




Smaller merchants use buy now buttons, and it is nice and convenient, except that it is slow to go into each order to get the address.

 

Instead, you could include the info in the email that is sent out.

Also, when downloading orders, you could include the phone, address and promotional email status.



Remove the need to have a authority signed SSL certificate to use the Callback

 

Allow users to upload their own certificates that will only be used for their merchant callbacks if SSL is to be required.

 

Requiring the use of an SSL connection just to use the Callback feature in Google Checkout is very limiting. None of the other major payment processors require this, and so I don't know why Google Checkout does.


Google Checkout will be MUCH more widely used if this requirement is removed.

 

 


Hi,

It would be nice if we were able to send Google Checkout "Buy Now" buttons in email invoices to customers.  I tried to send the HTML <form> but for some reason the email client (OE) does not process it in the same way that a web client does.  The button takes you to the Google Checkout page but undoubtedly does not post all of the necessary information because you get "Oops!
We were unable to process your request.".  Perhaps this is a common issue as PayPal provides a <form> for web pages and a simple hyperlink for emails.  Right now our order form presents the invoice to the customer over the web but emails a extra copy to them.  The button works on the web page but if the customer tries it from the email it does not work.  The PayPal button (being a simple hyperlink), works both on the web page and in the email, so if the customer decides to process their payment later from the email, they always use PayPal (because the GC button is not working).  Thanks for your consideration.

-SB 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Option to provide a way to delete a custom basket cookie after a successful transaction. A cookie can't be deleted in the server 2 server callback so there is therefore no way make sure that the customers shopping basket has been cleared when returning to the site.

 

If the name of a basket cookie was passed in the XML, google cart could delete it on a sucessful transaction.

 

 


 

Group google services and use different password for different groups

  

Sometimes, we need to enter our google account and password in sites external to google, to be able to mash gmail in netvibes for example, or to send and receive google talk messages from a universal IM client like Miranda or Gaim, Google calendar probably is used this way to, by doing this, we would be exposing the details of our Google Checkout account, it would be better if could group services in Google Accounts (I want picasa, docs and checkout in one group; gmail, talk on other) and have different passwords or security options for each group. Google Checkout should be maximum security.

  

  

 

 


 

Support Canada! Please

 

Please, please, please open the Google Checkout API to Canadians. We have nothing up here, but we're basically the same country. PayPal doesn't work, and everything we have requires $150+ setup fee + $50 a month + a per-transaction fee. 


I've never had a bad experience working with Google products, the API or the services. By opening your Checkout API to Canada (We're not some 3rd world country, btw =P) you'll be the ONLY option for online businesses. I'm sure Canada may have policies that have kept the Checkout API and PayPal's Pay-Flow-Make-PayPal-Rich-While-Ripping-People-Off out, but surely there can be something done.




 

Archive Multiple Items:

I need a way to select all items (or many) and archive. (Make the functionality like GMAIL!!) Clicking on individual links shown below is horrible.

[Jez: You can (could, they changed the ship part on 7th Nov 07 so you can only do this for archive) click on lots of links before the page refreshes - just keep clicking and you can get 5-10 before the page refreshes, and they all get actioned]


 

 

GMail Integration for small business: (this can be a whole new revenue stream for google !)

I would like google checkout to be added or integrated to google GMAIL. I currently receive payment emails in Gmail and want a method to integrate invoices, invoice printing and form letters from a html template using one interface using GMAIL. Currently GMAIL is part of a group of  web applications that can be added for a business domain, an addition is needed to easily have GMAIL identify the order, and allow extra tools in the interface to streamline order processing. Export feature to export transactions to a third part application like quickbooks. Subscription payments as well, as you can see from the image below, I use Paypal for subscriptions (recurring payments) and would like to use Google Checkout.


 

 

Itemized Invoices

  • When are you planning to create nice itemized invoices like PayPal? I itemize my invoices, but it does no good, because the ones I send with Google Checkout get all scrunched together into one blob of a paragraph...It is VERY unprofessional looking!


 charge-amount-notification  the need for  user-systems-transactionID  

  • When charging a user it is required to wait for the charge-amount-notification.

    In case of multiple charges one must have his system’s transaction ID in order to know for what transaction the charge-amount-notification refer to.

    Can you please add this feature? (Sending transaction id on charge that will be returned in charge-amount-notification).

 


Browse Stores Page

 

  • Browse stores page should have ALL merchants or none of them. http://www.google.com/checkout/m.html
  • Google always chooses to be JUST and FAIR to everyone. This should be practiced. Only some merchants are listed which Google Support claims "we select sites based on their Google Checkout sales and the
    overall user experience they offer
    ." This is a very open criteria. I looked at every single website. There are many amateur websites, many websites that are redirected to some other websites and the list goes on.
  • So if you list all Merchants, this SHADY - "Who Goes on the list, who doesn't" phenomenon comes to an end.


Don't force us to turn basic authentication off!

  

  • Many merchants are using Windows hosting (IIS) in a shared environment.  In order to receive callback notifications, IIS MUST have basic authentication turned off.  As this is not an option in some shared hosting environments (or you are using basic authentication for other portions of the site).  To work around this issue, Google should provide the ability to customize the username and password used to authenticate to the notification API callback URL.  This would allow merchants who need basic authentication on to create a user on their server and provide these credentials to Google to authenticate.  These settings should default to the merchant ID and merchant key so existing users aren't disrupted. 

  

Customizable Order Confirmation Emails

 

  • Since we're discouraged from sending additional confirmation emails, it would be nice to let us include a message in your default order confirmation email.  For example, the service my company provides requires the customer to ship their media to us before we can perform the service, so I'd like to give the customer two or three steps to follow in the confirmation email to let them know how to complete the ordering process.
  •  

 Auto-return page 

  • This would be yet another follow-up to let the customer know what steps to take to complete the ordering process and a chance for us merchants to thank our customers in our own words for choosing us and giving us the business.

 


Depositing funds to different bank accounts while using only one merchant account

  

  • It would be usefull to be able to segregate some businesses sales by having the funds deposited into different bank accounts. This can aid in keeping accounting simple and help track where sales comes from (although there are other tools that do this too). This is a feature I can see owners of multiple web sites that do sales be interrested in. 


new shipping interfrace allow optional methods to change state 

    • We do a lot of orders every day the new ship interface has added almost a hour each day to my work load.

      The old way you could click 5 or 6 at a time and let them change state to shipped. The new interfaced of

      brining up a screen and clicking a second time, gets to long when I have a hundred orders to process to shipped.

      Anytime you make a major change the new chaneg should be a option for the one person(s) that wanted it.

      I am sure you will see this complaint starting to come in. If I only ship 5 or 6 orders a day no issue.

      You have really added to much work to my already busy day
  • SALES TAX XCOLLECTION

    Secondly, all states are moving to sales tax by county, you system needs to be changed to support a county

    field in the ship to location


  • Repeat billing with vriable amounts  - add the ability to charge each month a different amount on the customer's card

can you create something similar to Wordpay's FuturePay seehttp://support.worldpay.com/kb/product_guides/futurepay/repeatbilling.html

 

  • Add ship address id - add "anonymous-address" (ship address id) to the new-order-notification 
    • This would allow API users to update OR create a shipping address for the particular customer, without having to resort to full text match of existing records to find if the shipping record use is one that was already used and in the system. The id already exists - you can see it in the Merchant Calculation Callback - why not include it also in the new-order-notification? See also this thread.
  • Charge Full Amount  - When set to automatically charge the credit card - charge full amount immediately
    •  We are seeing a large number of orders canceled because Google charges $1 first, and follows that up with the full amount immediately after.  There is no need to charge the $1 because you immediately charge the full amount of the order. We have our settings at "Automatically authorize and charge the buyer's credit card.". So that happens immediately. My suggestion is to charge the full amount and not the $1 at the time of the purchase. This is a big problem with gift cards when buyers are looking to charge the full amount to the gift card. This is also a problem with credit cards that do not have the funds available. You authorize it because the $1 goes through and then immediately deny it.  If you charged the full amount at the time of the purchase the buyer would have the option to use a different card. And we would not be notified of an order that ultimately fails. Again, the request is that at the time of the purchase you charge the buyer the full amount and not $1 + the full amount when the settings are "Automatically authorize and charge the buyer's credit card."
    • In addition, we need a reporting system. The ability to see summaries of monthly charges, sales made not including cancelled and refunds. And, of course, quarterly and yearly reports.

     
 
  • Send-Buyer-Message e-mail notifications -Please allow line breaks.  
    • Currently <br> tags are escaped. This is not practical to keep messages on 1 line. 
    • Using HTML formatting might be dangerous, but a simple line break would be very useful.
  • Micropayments for small-item sales under a few dollars - a second fee structure for merchants who sell digital goods
    • With the current price structure, Google Checkout is not very conducive to selling small items. For example, a $1 item would incur 22 cents in fees,
      or 22%. A second fee structure that could just apply to small-price items would be great. Perhaps a larger percentage but a lower fixed amount,
      such as 5 cents plus 5%? This would leave Google 10 cents per sale of a 1-dollar item, or 10% of the sale. A merchant would have to choose which fee structure best suits their inventory.
    • Selectable on a item-by-item basis? Or just one fee structure at a time per merchant?
    • For comparison purposes, see PayPal's Micropayments fee structure, which is better for items of less than 11 dollars. They have hidden it a bit, but here is the URL: PayPal Micropayment Description 

  • Security Deposits For Rented Merchandise- allow the seller to list a chargeable security deposit on the invoice. 
    • Allow seller to specify a separate chargeable security deposit that would normally be canceled by the seller, but could be charged by the seller if the rented merchandise is damaged.
  • Subscription Payments - accept automatic / periodic subscription payments
    • customers should be able to purchase an automatic recurring "subscription" type of item
  • Multi currency - let sellers submit shopping cart in different currencies. (usd, GBP, Euro to start with)
    • as setting up shop in the UK, default would be GBP. But with many customers in europe, we would handle shoppingcart in their base currency, being euros. we do not want to convert to gbp which then by their cc company is converted back to euros. Just give them the price in euros and they immediate know what the exact cost is. (ps we are ready for it :-) )

 

  • Level 3 Integration - full integration of checkout so user never leaves sellers site
    • New Google API to allow credit card authorization and payment behind scenes while user stays on the sellers site
    • An Object Orientated API in C# .NET would be great!
  •  
  • Query Google Server for FinancialOrderState - allow merchant to find out if an order has been successfully charged. In addition to having Google notify merchant's server, allow another method to discover financial order state automatically. Pass merchant_order_id attribute of item to Google's server. 
  • Get back order state for that merchant_order_id, as well as the time of order for additional security.

  •  Level 1 Ship Button - prompt seller to add tracking number before sending notification
    •  Currently shipping is a 3 step process and must be done in a strict sequence to accomplish this without issues
      • Step 1: go to order detail view
      • Step 2: save the tracking # (while in order detail view)
      • Step 3: click on the send button
    • if you make the mistake of clicking the SHIP button in order list view,  a notification is sent to buyer, but it will not have any tracking information. Seller is not asked nor prompted to provide tracking information if any. A prompt (not required value) would suffice.

  • Add non-SSL payment notification - allow postdata to be sent to a location that is not secure.

After a payment is made, postdata should be sent to a file on your webserver that you can specify containg all the infomation sent buy the payment notification system. There should then be a file on the Google server that you can then resend the postdata to for authentication. This would prevent spoofing for people who want to fake payments etc.

 

Custom scripts for a system like this could easily be made for severs. In the scripts a section could be left for people to put in thier own code maybe to update a database, send the buyer an email saying the payment was successful.

  • Shipping Choices per line item:- allow order to contain items shipped from different locations, with their own shipping methods and tax rates

current API does not allow shipping choices per line item. its not possible to use this if the items in the cart are being shipped from different locations with their own shipping options (how do you correlate item 1's list of usps priority mail, usps first class, with fedex ground, fedex next day for item 2, and digital download for item 3). if shipping options can be specified (and picked by customer) per line item this is the most flexible usage. the api prevents you from presenting shipping choices if you use drop-ship manufacturers.

  •   Manual Invoice:- allow ability to track and manage submitted invoices that have not been acted upon by the recipient.

current system does not seem to show submitted invoices, only orders placed and invoices that have been paid.  would be great to be able to see invoices that have been submitted but have not been paid, so a reminder email could be sent.

  •   Merchant Admin Accounts:- allow the ability to setup more than one administrator account that could view orders, cancel orders, submit manual invoices.

for companies that really want to utilize the system and may have more tha one person, parnter, bookeeper, etc that needs the ability to view transaction data, or submit an invoice, it would be much more secure to offer multiple access accounts rather than have those people share an account.

 

the ability to change the account user id and password would be possible concession to having multiple accounts.  google apps lets you setup users as adminstrators, google checkout should not be any different.


  • Improve RISK algorithm 

           Current risk evaluation algorithm is missing out a fundamental fraud evauluation for UK orders. 

         If a customer is ordering with different billing and delivery address, please MAKE the order chargeable only if AVS check fully matches the billing address.

        

 

  •  Level 1 wish list:
    • Reiterate a previous wish: telephone number of buyer or recipient (whomever is receiving a shipment). Increases communication efficiency for delivery issues/requests. Even UPS/FedEx will need such for arranging pickup (for returns) or alternate delivery.
        
    • Simple download (csv, tab, xml) of orders file for integration with existing systems (import files for UPS, FedEx, back end accounting systems, etc.). 
    • Allow Google Analytics Tracking on the various checkout pages.

      This may/will address a previous wish on integration with shipping systems (simple integration), and the above comment on shipping invoice. This will extend to any future wish for a packing slip feature. If the data can be downloaded, it can be used to create X amount of documents any merchant will need for shipping/fulfillment operations, along with any accounting/reconciliation processes.

      It's understood that these exist in Level 2 integration, but a simple file download will be great for Level 1. There are so many reasons why Level2 is a "wait and see" item for merchants regardless of technical resources.
       
  • General wish list:
    • Provide a better communication avenue for merchants, particularly when it comes to account/transaction issues. These issues impact operations and more importantly, merchant / customer relations...which no merchant will risk damaging..It's ok if this is a tiered structure (aka support levels).

  

  • Adding files to Invoices - Allow merchants to add files to invoices sent to clients. 
  • Time stamp on Orders - Please display local time rather than American time.
    • Currently UK sellers and buyers are subjected to time stamps like 13:45 - 7:00 GMT on the order history page.
    • This is confusing, please just display the local time
  •       Level 2 Integration - send e-mail notifications -Please allow more characters. 

               Currently only 255 characters are allowed. This is not practical to communicate sensible messages. 

  • Level 2 Integration - Merchants terms and conditions have to be accepted before ordering
  •      On the google checkout page, there should be new check box with title "I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions governing this order"
  •      Customer needs to read and accept the terms and conditions of the merchant before ordering. Buy now button should not be enabled unless the check box has been clicked.  
  • Send Link for Payment by Email - allow seller to send a (customisable) link to customer for payment
    • For service providers, instead of using the Google-managed invoice system, allow seller to use a link, customisable according to the buyer's preferences, e.g. the buyer can input the amount to pay or the seller inputs this as desired, in an email sent by the seller.

  • Send an invoice
    •  allow formatted text in the send an invoice dialog.  Currently, no text formatting is possible.  Any formatting, including a simple new line, is lost.  The resulting invoice to the customer appears garbled and unprofessional.  As a MINIMUM, allow new lines to be preserved with simple text.  As a future enhancement, allow more formatting.  Consider allowing a file attachment (e.g. a pdf invoice).

    • allow or change the salutation.  Currently, the greeting is "Hi".  For many merchants this is to casual and unprofessional.  "Dear" may be more appropriate, or no greeting at all. 

  • Add More UK Based Carriers - Royal Mail and ParcelForce for starters. 
  • Royal mail and parcel force are the UK's biggest carriers and should really be available in the UK version.  It looks bad when a customer's order has been dispatched with "other" courier.

  • Split Payments - allow the splitting of payments to two different merchant accounts.
    • allow the splitting of payments to two different merchant accounts.
    • to do this the merchant would register their merchant details (email address or account no only) on the site and list items for sale.
    • the buyer only makes one transaction.
    • the one transaction is split in the following way: allows commission from the sale to one merchant (or the site where the item is listed) and the other merchant gets money for the product they have listed.

 

 

  • Mobile Connectivity for Google Users - Allow to connect Google talkers anytime from mobile to internet and any to any...... 
    • Now adays google talk is most famous among professionals work in abroad and with their family. We can introduce a kindaa  mobile device from which users can directly connect to the google and have a talk/chat with other online google users...
    • Having a tie-up with local mobile providers and specialized low-cost mobile phones this is achievable. This increases google business area also...
    • More inputs on this.... welcome..  @ ksvraja@gmail.com

  • UK Version allow population of name address etc. for new customer accounts. The system requires new users to set up an account, but my shop already has cookie login, customer accounts, delivery address and calculations, and order review page.
    They go from there to the Credit card payment/checkout page, and are returned to an Order confirmation page. A simplified version/operation would be more customer friendly, as the Express Checkout with Google storing their card details is the way to go, due to additional 3D secure system coming in shortly, requiring a second sign/password is likely to lead to more abandoned carts. Amazon and Paypal have realized the customer friendliness of one click checkout, so the closer we can get to that the better. 

     
  • Increase the Google Checkout timeout period for Merchant Calculation callbacks. The system design requires that the merchant does not know where the shipping address is located before handing off the transaction to Google...
    As a result of this, the merchant is totally dependent on the merchant callback for figuring out the shipping expenses (if there is no flat-rate).  This can consist of multiple parcels from multiple locations.  That means in the callback, there may be multiple additional round-trips to UPS, Fedex, USPS, etc. servers for rate information as well.   THREE SECONDS is just not enough time!
  • Add <company> Tag to <anonymous-address>- Add this tag so some shippers (as FedEx) can determinate where to use  one rate or the other.ie. FedEx "Home" rates for standard customers and "Ground" for company customers. This info is now not available in the Merchant-calculation-Callback.
  • Free Nonprofit 501(c)(3) Transactions - allow 501(c)(3) organizations the ability to receive donations online for free after 2007.
     
  • Validate Order before charge - send a validate-order-notification before finalizing the order
    • Before charging the credit card a notification would be sent to determine if the order is valid.  This would allow Level 2 integrators to return error messages like the product is no longer available because someone else purchased it.
  • Separate users first and last name - send the contact names (billing and shipping) in two fields rather than 1
    • This is really killing us sometimes.  The culprit is how you allow people to sign up for a googlecheckout account.  It's a freeform textbox.  Its very difficult to tell what is a first name, middle initial, prefixes, suffixes. etc.  I have to parse it and it often fails, this drives our merchants crazy.  For example, i'll get a name like Susan J Stone or Susan Stone or Ms. Susan Stone or Susan J St. James, etc etc.  Just have the appropriate fields on the signup page for all that stuff and then modify the XML schema accordingly.  <name-prefix><first-name><middle-name><last-name><name-suffix>, something like that.  I got an Edward R. Smith Jr the other day, there is NO way to parse that consistently.
    • Please fix this next!!! This is at the top of my frustration list! I'm trying to parse the name into First and Last fields and already have over 200 permutations of last name prefixes and suffixes and the list is far from complete. For example: Jerry R De La Rosa Jr MD. It's easy for a human to decide to split this between the 'R' and 'De' but not so easy for a computer program. Please give the names in First and Last name fields!  ... or if you have already developed a function to do intelligent parsing of the name into First and Last fields, share it with the rest of us.
  • User Checkout Language unclear - Users believe their credit card is already being charged when they read "Your credit Card will be charged".
    • "Billing Information & Privacy
      Your credit card will be charged by Google. "GOOGLE * ******* " will appear by the charge on your credit card statement. To process your order, TheNerds.Net will have access to your address, email, and phone number. Your phone number may be used in relation to your order, but will never be used to deliver unsolicited commercial messages to you. Learn more
  • Allow mass payment- allow me to programatically send small amount money to a list of people.  
    • I'm working on a micro-payment based online advisory website.  The basic workflow is we have in house experts whom visitors will pay $5-$50 to ask a question.  The website will need to get the money from the question asker and programmtically pay it to the answerer. Right now, there seems to have no such function available.
  • Increase the item desc. length on Place Order Page- completely view the item description from start to the end and not end with '...' abruptly..
    • I need to increase the character length of the Item description in the Place Order page.This page lists the items in the customer's order and the shipping options available for the order. I want to see the complete item description from start to the end and not end with '...' abruptly.The reason being my item description is not viewed complete even when I get the order confirmation and also when the receipt is sent to the customer through the email.

     

     

  • "Shipping" not applicable and confuses customers - allow merchants selling online services (document/software downloads) to remove references to "shipping" since physical shipping is not applicable.
    • I would like to be able to specify whether or not shipping is applicable to a purchased item somewhere in the cart XML posted to Google Checkout.  That way, my customers will not see any references to shipping when buying products/services that are not actually shipped.  This would also eliminate the need for me to "ship" the service purchased either by clicking the "Ship" button in the Merchant Center or by sending an XML ship response to Checkout.  Moreover, this feature would avoid customer confusion over whether or not they will receive something in the mail.
    • I prefer using the Buy Now buttons for selling my digital content, but the text on the Google shipping notice makes customers think something will be shipped in the mail, and consequently, some of them dispute the credit card charge, even though they received my email download instructions.  At least, please give us the option of "marking the item as shipped" and NOT sending the Google Shipping Notice.  Or allow us to customize the main text.
    • We too would like to remove reference to 'shipping', its gets customers in a panic on digital downloads in time-critical transactions as they think they must then wait for the item to be 'shipped' to them, when this really isn't the case!


     

     

  • Customized Shipping Emails - more flexibility with the email message that is sent to buyers when the merchant clicks the "Ship" button.
    • I would like to be able to insert some text of my own into this message (software download instructions and product activation key, which varies from one sale to the next) or suppress this message, that is, let me mark the order "shipped" but allow me to send my own email to the customer instead of Google's.
  • Level 1 Email Notications - allow the merchant to specify a *DIFFERENT* email address for receiving the "order notification" emails from Google Checkout. 
    • I originally signed up for Checkout using my regular email address, assuming that I would be able to direct the notification emails to my special "order processing" email address.  (Both of the payment processors I have used in the past, VeriSign and PayPal, provided this capability.)  When I found that no such facility existed with Google Checkout (i.e., all the notification emails would show up in the same place as all of the spam that I get), I was forced to abandon the original Google Checkout account that I had created, and then create a new Google Checkout account under my "order processing" email address.

  • Accept Donations - give users the ability to accept donations
    • Make a 'Donate Now' button
    • Create ability to set up recurring donations
  • Recurring Charges - ability to automatically charge buyers for recurring payments. 
    • Example Uses: 
      • Magazine subscription 
      • Monthly/annual membership fee
      • Payment plans
      • Deposits w/ followup payments (such as a trip/tour that requires 10% now and 90% on departure)
      • '___ of the month' club 
    • Create an Authorized ID-key for recurring charges that the merchant can use to get payment (Referance transactions, can bill for any amount)
    • Authorized ID-keys could be listed on the user account and turned on or off by the user.  Whenever the ID is on, the merchant can charge that ID-key for the pre-approved amount or make charges up to a pre-approved limit.

    SIGN-UP BUTTONS - ability to create custom payment plans with Google Checkout.

    • Have a customer payment information system that merchants can manage customers with recurring payment amounts and payment plans that charge the customer (single, monthly, or annually)? The custom Sign-Up buttons could be created in the control panel with name, type, amount, & time frame. After the sign-up button's code are embedded in your own personal website you could allow the customer to decide which plan is right for them. After the payments are received, confirmation emails are automatically sent to confirm receipt of payment.

  • Checkout Button Additional Customer Information - allow seller to append additional customer information via Checkout Button integration
    • Current problem is that simple integration via the Google Checkout Button doesn't allow passing along additional customer information so the seller can associate an order back to the originating user. This could be used to pass along a unique identifier to associate an order back the originating user (aka customer).
       
  • Multiple Shipping Addresses - allow buyer to ship his items to several shipping addresses
    • Buyer adds items to his cart
    • On the Google Checkout page Buyer has option to add more shipping addresses
    • The subtotal is recalculated (multiplied by number of shipping addresses)and shipping costs/taxes are recalculated as well
    • Buyer has option to add more shipping addresses or to remove some (but not the latest one)

    • Digital Delivery - ability to use Google Checkout for selling digital goods
      • Downloadable files
        • The problem with this in the current Google Checkout implementation is that GC does not require the user to create an account on the site before going to GC (if you want to qualify for AdWords). How can a digital-download company associate a payment with an account if we have no information on that person?
    • Item Options - ability to specify an arbitrary number of name/value pairs as item options
      • color: black
      • size: XL
      • method: fast
      • etc.

      Note by fesersoft: merchant-item-private-data now supports an unlimited number of XmlNodes to be placed inside the element. So what I have done is create an XmlNode called attribute <attribute name="color" value="black" />. I am doing this now on a site that is going live within a few weeks. When the information comes back via the calculation or new-order-confirmation, I then process the attributes and add them to a table called item attributes.

       
    • Ignore the shipper specified in Deliver request- Why does Google care what shipper the merchant uses?
      • Should be able to specify 'Acme Trucking' and give their phone number as the tracking ID 
      • Shipping info should be a 'pass through'. 
      • Remove the option about sending email.  Most shippers or merchants will do that anyway.
    • Auto Return - ability to send buyer to a specific URL automatically after purchase. 
      • To provide instant download (rather than relying on email) after selling a digital product like a software or ebook or mp3 etc.
      • This also improves the user's buying experience when they are sent back to the original company page with something like, "Thank you for your order..." and instructions for downloading, time frames, et al 

       

    • Auto Return by Product - ability to send buyer to a specific URL automatically after purchase which differs by product 

      • Sends buyer to a different download page for different digital products. 

    • Ship-to address change - allow buyer to change ship-to address without necessarily requiring the initial order to be cancelled
      • Buyers sometimes find that they entered an incorrect ship-to address
      • This would void Google's guarantee, since shipping to an alternate is always risky. 
       
    • Customer Notes - Allow buyer to enter notes while placing there order
      • Buyers sometimes have specific comments, such as where to leave package.  Different businesses, such as ours, use a notes field to allow customers to request special circumstances.
      • Additionally, I would like capability for this field to be renamed by the merchant. Ex: Customer notes could be renamed to Imprint Information.  Being in the printing business, this feature would be a great help!  It would allow the customer to add detailed instructions as well as their imprint
    • Available Logos- downloadable security logos to put on a shopping cart page
    • Visitors are more likely to make a purchase if they see a logo on the page that indicates the transaction is secure.
    • Pre-defined Tax Rules - allow the tax rules to be specified in the configuration screens for those don't use merchant calculations
      • Currently all the tax rules are specified in the cart XML that is pushed to Google.
        Since a companys tax rules seldom change, and there is a possibility that there is a large number of them, a much better approach would be to have a place in the configuration area where you can upload all your tax rules in XML format, and not transmit any tax rules with the cart. 
    • Customizable payment pages- Customers feel better when they see the logo/company-graphic on the payment page as well as a consistent color scheme
      • Image should be https:// and we should have options for changing background color of the page.
      • Both VeriSign and PayPal have this feature.  In fact, this feature is already implemented in Google's own "Custom Search" facility.
         
    • Obtain Integration Errors - An API or web service to obtain a list of integration errors.
      • The EULA does now allow screen scraping and I would like to obtain the error types and the messages that were sent for reporting or potential reprocessing in the system. 
    • Get Order State - Query the system for the current financial or order state
      • It would be nice to find the current order or financial state based on an order-number.  
    • Multi-Tracking No with Optional Tracking Link - Many companies ship products in multiple boxes and in multiple shipments.
      • Many customer service type calls are related to increased requests for tracking information. To reduce this we must provide the customer with all of the information they require at their figertips.
      • There are a few shipping carriers that have very normalized methods of tracking packages, but there needs to be a method to not only add multiple tracking numbers to an order but to add the link that directly integrates with the shipping carriers website.
    • Avoid referring the incorrect callback URL
      • Initially the Callback url was updated with the wrong address which was changed later.  but still 'notification failure message' for the orders that had been addressed to the old url , repeatedly.  please check into this and help us avoid getting the failure message?
    • API to send invoices - give the ability to send invoices to multiple recipients  
    • Email notifications-  change "from" to customers email address instead of noreply@checkout.google.com
    • Custom Field for notes- Option to allow user to enter a mobile device ID at checkout
    • Digital Downloads - provide better support for selling software 
    • Limited quantity product support- - prevent orders being placed for limited quantity items that have sold out
      • Either have the ability to flag an item as "unique" and prevent checkout from completing if that item has been purchased, or add an option for a last minute merchant calculation to verify stock just prior to finalizing the order. I can use the notification API right now to take the item out of stock in my database but if two customers start checkout near the same time they will both be able to order the unique item and I would have to cancel one.
  • Add Kill button to Integration Console - allow a merchant to stop notification failures

    • Provide merchants the ability to stop repeated attempts of notification when they know it's pointless.
    • When the error message link is clicked you are taken to the detail page about the notification. Users should be able to say "stop notifying me about this".
  •  Get rid of the die() in SendReq().- - Not nice for a library to exit an application due to a communication error.
  • Return an error code or error string instead.
  • Print Shipping Label - integration with UPS, FedEx or USPS!
    • Allow seller to print a shipping label directly from Google Checkout.

  •   Auto Redirection Back to Merchant Site - Allow Merchants to request that users are automatically redirected to a merchant specified URL after payment has been completed.  Paypal already provides this option, It is is very useful for some cart systems to have the user return to the merchant site after the user payment authorization step has been completed. The merchant cart can then give the user  pertanent information about their completed order and more or less count on the urser getting to this step( and so, count on the user recieving  ups tracking numbers, encourage the user to make more purchases, etc.) I know google provides a link for users to click back through to the merchant site, but a redirect option is much preferable. Loosing user control, tracking, is bad for merchants and not good for users either. Also, a merchant specified url explicitly for returning to the merchant site after order completion is better than the way it is done in GC now - now google lets the user click on the merchant specified 'public' url. Other user's have requested this feature in other forums.
  • In addition to the above request, a problem I have run into is that I need the payment to be accepted before the order is placed because the vendor does not use email. Instead, he uses fax to receive orders at his deli where he proceeds to make and deliver the food immediately upon receiving the order. A redirect page would solve this as I could have the fax sent at the tiem of redirect. This is really a feature that should be included please!
  •  Echeck payments - Go for the gold people, let me ditch paypal and my other payment systems forever.  I really need echeck processing, I pay for it, maintain a seperate payment system but I like the GC api, I'd like it even more if it was the only one I had to keep up with for payment processing ( now I use three different apis for three different systems). Echeck acceptance would allow me to standardize on GC for all my order proccessing.  
  •  Auto-return & Payment Data Transfer - Implement a feature like Paypal's auto-return and payment data transfer services.  Echoing what other's have said before: would really like a way to get rerouted back to merchant site, and a way for merchant server to confirm that payment has been made and details of payment.

     

  •  Ability to disable customer reviews - Customer reviews about the merchant should be optional or be able to be deleted.  Many ecommerce merchants can testify that some customers, no matter how hard you try, you will never please.  Please don't bother implemening something like Ebay's feedback feature. I was a former Ebay seller -  the feedback forum became a place for everyone to gripe about the smallest of issues.  Some of us don't have 10 employees, so yes in the real world  sometimes orders  will get delayed or we might goof on something.  But I don't want the customer whining  online about every issue for everyone else to see...it starts to feed on itself.  Yes, I had someone complain once that there was too much tape on the package.  Sure, good feedback is a positive.  I still don't want it.  If the customer has a real strong legitimate complaint about my business, take it to the BBB.   But leave it off GC.   I don't want to lose business from the hard to please types - and they are out there!  This is just feature creep anyhow.

     

  •  Aviability in other coutries than US- Provide Google Checkout in Europe.  There is a lot's of potential users (sellers) in Europe and the others place.
     

  •  Stop Canceling Accounts & Refunding Transactions Without Notice, Reason, or Explanation - In order to stay in business, merchants need to be paid for their sales. This may seem quite obvious, but somehow got lost in the business plan for Checkout.  It looks to me like they are aiming to gradually shutdown Checkout by adding to the natural attrition rate - that's the only possible explanation.

     

  •  SMS Alerting System- Provide an SMS alerting sytem "on demand"  Sellers propably wants to be keep informed, for special articles they are selling on their catalogs, provide an optional option to be always been alerted on transaction payment could be cool.

     

  •  Support user level language- Provide Google Checkout with the user defined language For a better international usage 
    Checkout have to be translated. Keep in mind the total of sellers / buyers of auctions like platforms users around the world.

  •  Enhance UI- User interface could be improved We all love google products but user interface could be improvred, corporate visual identity is important as well as performance and support.

     

  •   Multiple actions on Orders page Could you be more explicit ? (and use the google standard for suggestions)


    • Administrative Notes - Allow merchant to enter internal notes about each order
      - Merchant can have several people working on orders and sometimes, when an item is drop-shipped, whoever works on the order can make notes about the status (waiting for supplier to respond, checking shipping cost, waiting for price on 2nd item, etc, etc).  Or in general any kind of notes about the order prior to it being shipped.  *Sorry...not sure how to work with the Bullets
       
    • Merchant Definable Tabs and Order Status - Allow merchant to create additional TABS and Order Status
      When an item is in stock, the current Order Status works fine (New, Processing, Shipped).  But when an item is being drop shipped, it is important to be able to mark the order as "In Purchasing (Dept)" or "Waiting for Supplier".  Then, when it goes to processing, before being shipped, it would be good to be able to change the status to "Order Entry" or something like that.  Then, when the order has been processed and a PO has been issued and faxed to the supplier(s), it would be good to change the status to "PO faxed".  And it would be preferable to be able to see the different statuses in different tabs.
       
    • Option to receive order without even authorizing - Allow merchant to accept orders without even authorizing the Credit Card.
      - When Drop-Shipping, the merchant never really knows if the item is available.  Currently the only 2 options with Google Checkout are: 1) Authorize only, 2) Authorize and Charge.  However, many times a customer orders using a Debit Card. The item is not available and the orders is cancelled, and then the customer calls upset about why are we "holding" their money, since the refund process can take more than 1 day.  And this is not when charged....debit cards actually get money debited from the account when authorized.  Furthermore, there's an Expiration of 7 days since the authorization date.  If drop-shipping, there's an issue with the delay of the suppliers getting back with information about availability and shipping cost, and sometimes the 7 days come short.  If the card could be authorized ON DEMAND by the merchant, the expiration date of 7 days  would be less of an issue and the authorizations on debit cards would not create problems for the customers waiting to get their money back.
      - The following is an example of emails merchants get because of this issue (non-stocks or discontinued that are authorized and then cancelled).
      Hello Merchant, 
      John Smith has sent you the following message: Refund/return request for order #999999999999999:
      The item I ordered was, as you notified me, discontinued, and the email I received said that my credit card was not charged. However, when I view my account online, it shows that the charge is still pending, tying up that money. Will this be taken off soon? I really need the money.  This is taking too long.
       
    • Option to extend expiration period - Allow merchant chose the expiration period, up to 30 days
      - When Drop-Shipping, the merchant does not have control of how soon an item is shipped by the supplier.  In many cases, the 7 days from the time the transaction is authorize expire before the product is shipped.  Merchants should be allowed to chose how long do they want the expiration period to be, up to 30 days.
      - Also, merchants should be allowed to CANCEL an authorization if for some reason a product cannot be shipped.
      - Customers should CLEARLY know how many days will pass until the HOLD in the credit card dissapears or until the DEBIT in their Debit Card gets credited back.
    • Bulk Archiving (or changing Tabs or Status) - Allow merchant to bulk archive orders with checkboxes on each order on the Inbox and a drop-down to take action.
      - Archiving each order takes one click and a second or two.  Sometimes some orders are canceled and then they need to be archived one by one.  Furthermore, if the concept of TABS or Merchant Created Status is implemented then the merchant could BULK change Status or send it to different Tabs (Archived, Cancelled, Order Entry, Waiting for Supplier, etc, etc, et)
       
    • More space & Rich Text in cancellation notes- Allow merchant to enter up to 5000 characters in the cancellation note, in Rich Text.
      - Currently, the system lets the merchant enter a brief cancellation note, only in normal text. The customers are placing their faith in the merchant, and if the product is out of stock or discontinued, they can only get a skimpy "sorry" note.  With up to 5000 characters in rich text, the merchant could explain in detail the situation, offer a coupon, offer alternatives, explain what was done in its case, etc, etc.  Customers deserve a really good explanation.  The Rich Text is to let the merchant BOLD or use colors to emphasize certain details of the explanation, as well as include functional links to alternative products, for example.  The 5000 characters is to let the merchant have sufficient space to include a list of alternative products.
       
    • Real emails from customers- Allow merchant to chose if it wants to let customers make their emails "private"
      - Some merchants use CRM systems to manage communications with customers after the sale (problems, returns, questions, doubts).  For example, in NetSuite, if a CASE is created, a merchant employee can post a customer's question and answer through the case.  When the customer replies to it the email is automatically routed and posted to the case.  This works only when the customer uses their real email.  If the customer chose to use the Google-Forwarded email, the system doesn't work.  Therefore, the merchant should be the one who makes the choice if to let its customers use or not use this google forwarding ("make my email private).  Currently, by default, the system lets the customers make that choice.  In trying to be "nicer" to the customer, Google is hindering the merchant's ability to serve the customer better.
       
    • Company or Institution Name- Allow customers to enter Company or Institution name in a clearly defined field.
      - In the case of many customers that are companies or institutions, the purchase is made by an individual, but it is for the company or institution.  The customer IS the company, and not the individual.  Customers should have a clearly defined field to optionally enter a Company or Institution name, if they so desire.  It might be advisable to even ask the company if the purchase is personal or commercial and note that in the order for the merchant to see.

    • Both BILL TO & SHIP TO addresses- Currently there's only ONE address. Many customers have a different Billing & Shipping address.
      - In the case of many customers that are companies or institutions, they do have a Billing Address that is different from the Shipping Address.  This should be allowed for the customer to enter and allowed for the merchant to see.  The BILL TO might be the accounts payable or accounting department of the company and the SHIP TO the physical place where the item should be shipped.
       
    • Different Cardholder from Buyer- Some orders are made by somebody for somebody else.  This should be noted for the merchant to see.
      - Many times, especially in companies or institutions, the person actually making the purchase is different from the credit card holder.  Valid and non-fraudulent purchases are constantly made by Buyers in companies, using their bosses' credit cards.  Currently, the merchant would only see the name of the credit card holder.  If communication is needed between the merchant and the customer, the merchant might be addressing "John" when the person who receives the emails and actually made the purchase is "Mary".  Although valid and allowed by John, John might not be aware of the purchases made continuously by Mary.  It would be useful for both merchant and customer to communicate addressing the right person.
       
    • PO#s in addresses- Allow customers to include a Purchase Order number in the address of either or both Bill To & Ship To
      - Some customers are companies, and the buyer is sending the purchase to a particular warehouse.  When the package arrives, the warehouse personnel have no idea what the package is and who is it for, unless there is a PO# clearly marked in the address label.  Also, some companies require Invoices sent to them after the purchase, by fax or email, and they like to see their PO# clearly marked in the Billing Address.  The Customer should be allowed to enter a PO# in either or both Bill To & Ship To addresses.
       
    • Customizable order acknowledgement messages- Allow merchants to customize order acknowledgement messages.
      - In both the order confirmation page and in the order acknowledgement email, merchants should be allowed to enter up to 10,000 characters of rich text, to be able to mention important issues to the customer, regarding what to expect, how to communicate better in case of problems, how to initiate returns, etc.  Although much of this can be explained in the policies page, it is advisable to emphasize certain issues at the moment of purchase, because most customers don't read the policies page.  For example, what to expect when the item is large and the delivery is made by a trucking company, or how long does it usually take to get an order processed, or how is the best way to communicate with our customer service personnel in case of urgency.
       
    • Shipping to PO Boxes, APO & FPO addresses- Allow merchants to chose if OK to ship to PO Boxes, APO or FPO addresses or not.
      - Many merchants only use UPS or Fedex and do not use USPS (US Postal Service).  Neither UPS nor Fedex will deliver to an APO or FPO address.  Therefore, instead of the customer entering an order and then getting upset because it gets cancelled after a couple days, the merchant should have the option to limit orders to the ones that have only a PHYSICAL address.
       
    • Minimum Orders- Allow merchants to set a minimum order amount.
      - Getting an order processed takes time and costs money.  If drop-shipping, the merchant first has to contact oner or several suppliers, get confirmation of availability, cost and shipping cost.  This takes time.  Then, the order needs to be entered in the accounting system.  Then, there's customer service to answer customers' requests for status or other issues.  Then there's customer service to deal with transport damage and other shipping problems.  All of this costs money.  Some merchants simply cannot make money on a $5 order.  And it is difficult to add a $25 handling fee to a $5 item, since customers get upset.  Therefore, many merchants have MINIMUM ORDERS.  Currently, Google Checkout doesn't allow the merchant to set a minimum order.  It should.  This way, the merchant could post a message in the Shopping Cart or in a visible place in their store, and when the customer tries to checkout on a very small order using Google Checkout, the system would inform the customer that it cannot proceed because of the minimum order issue.  Google has to consider that most merchants are not "automated" like Amazon and much of the work in the backoffice is manual, and that costs a lot of money.  Merchants can go broke processing very small orders, especially if the merchant is mostly drop-shipping from suppliers.
       
    • Phone Numbers - Merchant should be the one to chose if Bill To (Buyer) Phone and Ship To Phone are required or optional
      - Having the Buyer (Bill To) phoneallows merchant to contact buyer if buyer-supplied email is bouncing.
      - It is very important to be able to see both phone numbers in the Order information page.  Currently the system doesn't let you see it (I have read somewhere that the phone info is on Intergration Level 2...what about merchants that don't have the technical capability to do Integration Level 2?)
      - For deliveries which require a common carrier, many times it is REQUIRED to have a phone number to contact the customer prior to delivery.  Without a phone number, the trucking company will not even pick up the products.  In this case, it would be good to let the customer enter a SHIP TO phone, since the coordination for delivery could be done with the delivery location personnel and not necessarily with the Buyer.
      - In general phone numbers are very useful to shippers when there is some issue with delivery of the shipment, in some cases even when UPS or Fedex are trying to make the deliveries. 
      - Phone numbers are very useful to merchant if shipment is returned because buyer had entered an incorrect ship-to address.
      - The Merchant should be able to set the preference about Phone numbers being optional or required.  Some shipments simply cannot be made if there's no phone number.  A merchant that sells CD's might not care about the phone number.  A merchant that sells Refrigerators definitely needs phone numbers.
      - It would be advisable to let the customer enter EITHER OR ALL Work, Home & Cell Phone addresses.  The merchant could require at least ONE phone number, but the customer could chose to provide more.
       
    • Creating Google Accounts should be optional - Several customers complain about not liking Google Checkout because it requires creating an account.
      - Many customers simply don't like creating accounts.  They probably fear increased SPAM or just don't like their information to be stored indefinitely somewhere.  Some customers just will not make a purchase using Google Checkout because of that issue.  It would be good for both Customer & Merchant to let the customer enter an order without having him/her create a Google account.  In reality, Google could be creating an account in the background, since it needs to have a way to store the order and communicate with the customer, but the perception to the customer would be that there's no account created. In other words, if the customer goes to any Google service and enters his/her email, it would not show an account.  The "background" account would ONLY serve the purpose of completing and communicating with the customer for that ONE order.
    • Transfer funds from on Google Account to another- I am planning a contest site that will pay out small awards and would like to use checkout-to-checkout.
      - By requiring winners to have a Google Checkout account, it takes care of a whole lot of things that we don't want to deal with.  If someone can't qualify to have a Google Checkout account, they would forfeit the win.  No one is going to want to give their credit card to a contest site to accept winnings.  We don't want to be sending out checks and having to deal with maintaining a checking account for this.  The ability to tell our winner "Set up a Google Checkout account and email your number to us.  Your prize will be transerred upon receipt" would be a great way to handle this.  In our case, we are thinking of rewards from $25 to $100.
    • Google Shopping cart similar to Paypal's shopping cart- Hosted on Google and products submitted via forms.
      - Many merchants don't want to use a huge Content Management System like OSCommerce and Zen Cart. Due to the ease of use of adding products to a paypal shopping cart and not having to use a huge CMS cart system or learn any code is a major reason to not switch to Google Checkout.
    •  
    • Swipe Transactions - Java or similar interface for processing swiped face-to-face transactions
      • Though rates are not necessarily competitive with other swiped transaction merchant accounts, the ease of use, simple interface and transparent business practices of Google would be a welcome shift to the merchant services industry. Please help us put some pressure on FirstData to become merchant friendly.
    • Increase Usability of Request for Payment/Invoicing Tool - I write invoices from scratch and would like better options for listing items on my invoices.
      • I do not currently use any "buttons" from Google Checkout.  Instead, since my business is fee-for-service, I need to be able to list the services performed and their prices on the invoice/request for payment.  I attempted using HTML markup in the invoicing tool, but that didn't work and the tool automatically downsizes hard-returns and additional spaces.  Unfortunately, I have to use PayPal's invoicing tool to get my customers the breakdown they need in a very clear, concise format.
    • Integrate with billing and accounting software - alow information about invoices and payments to be downloaded to financial software like QuickBook, Microsoft Accounting and others. 
       
    • Provide Merchants ability to Disable Google anonymous email aliases - The alias thing has caused me and my customers nothing but trouble with zero benefit.
      • Please get rid of it or allow the Merchant to turn it off. Paypal works fine without this masquerading.
    • Gift Card Text - Add an option to an account to allow gift card text, and if on, then allow customer to enter text in google, finally add a element in the xml for new-orders to send gift card text to us. 

       

    • The whole default shipping costs for level two is not realistic.  To come up with right costs we need the zip code. This has to be the hardest editor I've ever used. And I used edlin.

       

    • Multiple stores/sites  - allow multiple stores/sites under a single account.
      • Another hard to part with PayPal feature.
    • Extend the HTML API - allow merchants to populate user information fields.
      • We don't have SSL support at this time and can't do a level 2 integration. Capturing user data in our order processing system would therefore be much easier if we send you the customer's name, address, etc
    • Ability to manage several users - Allow several employees of the merchant to access the Google Checkout Orders Inbox (Dashboard).
      • We have several employees working at different times on the dashboard.  We should be able to let them log in with their own accounts and when they do something log the action together with the person that entered the change.
    •  Ability to receive payments without a bank account - Offer another payment option, checks by mail, for example.
      • I don't have a bank account (I'm 13), but I want to start a small business.
  •  Integration with Vendio/Auctiva/Andale- For use with auction sites. The same way you can integrate a merchant gateway, it would be nice to have the ability to tie Google Checkout with these post-sale auctions to streamline the checkout process. (Whether ebay likes it or not:)

     

    Make the Merchant Order ID Bolder / More Visible - It's pretty hidden away at the minute and is the primary means of us asking customers what their order reference is.

     

     Ability to allow customers to change their order - Customer could change there order on suppliers website which takes them to Google to confirm.

  • Syncronious transaction instead of a callback.

     

    •   Comments Box - Customer can enter additional information for their order, such as second person's name attending class, etc.  
    • Send money to an E Mail: I think it will be cool if my customers can send money to my email just like pay pal.  I use an online invoicing program www.freshbooks.com and it lets me add my pay pal email account and customers can pay me using their CC when I send them an invoice would love to use GCO instead if I can.


     


    • International transactions explained in help pages - explain if google checkout can let a UK user sell goods to a US buyer from USD to GBP and how any currency is converted, who will be charged for currency conversion, etc.
    • Expose Merchant Feedback Through API - allow developers to access merchant rating summaries and details programmatically. 
    • Similar to eBay and Amazon APIs, developers can access the feedback rating system and at the least retrieve feedback info based on a username lookup.
  • Hyperlink the order to matching product - allow seller to easily identify the correct item to be shipped. 
    • Allow seller to click on the order name or other area of merchant receipt (online and email) and be taken to the matching product that the buyer purchased.  This will improve customer satisfaction, as there will be less instances of mismatchd products being delivered.

     

    Google checkout used to facilitate crossline transactions - Merchants with both online and offline channel capabilities commonly allow end user to shop online and pick-up merchandise offline (e.g., Circuit City, Best Buy, Wal Mart), after payment has been transacted online. As provided, web service would enable Google Checkout to facilitate cross channel (i.e., online channel to offline channel) transacting of Internet goods and services otherwise transacted end-to-end online. Thereby, enabling cash (bills/coins) as a method of payment for goods and services sold via the Internet. 

    • Use case: Using Google Checkout ID end user selects "pay offline" feature at checkout and is messaged order confirmation and where in their local community (e.g., supermarket, convenience store, etc.), actual payment can be transacted. After payment has been tendered items would ship accordingly to the "ship to" address on record.

    Post the customer's IP Address for all orders - it will help reduce fraud to be able to know the actual IP address of the customer who placed an order thru Google Checkout.  Other payment gateways (e.g. Authorize.net) provide this, and it is extremely valuable.

    Manually Enter Customer Info- The only thing keeping me from switching to google checkout completely, over my current systema, is there is no way for customers to call me to pay by phone (card not present). I run an online business, but many customers call to purchase over the phone. Being able to enter existing google cart customer info or create new info for customers as an administrator would be such a huge leap for online companies like checkout and paypal.

    Too Many Emails- When I send a google invoice it would be much more beneficial if the email actually came from my email address (one my customer's trust) than a random Google address. I end up sending a personalized email to let them know I sent a google invoice, and then there is a confirmation email that they send to new google cart members, a confirmation that the customer purchased the product, and then a shipping notification email (I provide services so I don't need the shipping notification email). All these should be admin options to give the store owner the control, not Google checkout.

    • Rounding PER_ITEM- allow seller to round with tax per item rather than per line or for the total. 
      • We round our values per item on the line, rather than per the line. For example, we have a product that costs £520.85 before tax. With tax at 17.5%, this comes to £611.99875 which we round up to £612.00. So, if the customer buys ten of them, that gives us a line total of £6,112. If we rounded per line instead, we would have £520.85 * 10, which is £5208.50. If we then add the tax to that we end up with £6119.9875, which rounds up to £6119.99 - a penny discrepency between google and us. This is causing us a complete nightmare! If this does become resolved could I be alerted at antony@purple-label.com, please?

    Make a Quick Buy Logo- I have a a Google Checkout Cart, but would lik

  •  

     

    Google Bank - become the largest online transaction service by focusing on the consumer and lowering transaction costs for merchants.  

    • Allow consumer to have a cash account that earns a small amount of interest and can be used through google checkout to purchase items online
    • Charge merchants very minimal transaction fee, maybe 0.25% for customers who purchase items through google checkout
    • Provide consumer line of credit through third party outsource or google acquisition and charge interest rate on credit but still offer low transacation fees for online shopping.

    Show Merchant Order No. (if added) on Charged Orders Detail Page - this would make accounting for payments MUCH easier. 

  • Now we must lookup each order to find our Order Number.

  • It would also be great if the main orders tab also showed the Merchant Order No. if it has been added.

     

     

    Provide each Google Checkout Customer with a Digital Wallet

    • Allow merchants that sell digital content to send that content direct to a customers wallet
    • Customer can access wallet at any time rather than  go back to merchant if they lose key code
    • Didgital

     

    Raise the $10,000 limit on chargeback protection and invoicing -this could be subscription based

    • Currently we must split up transactions larger than $10,000 when sending invoices, this is annoying for us to send to our customers.  Raising this limit would make GoogleCheckout a more viable service for B2B products and services.
    • Increased chargeback protection would be necessary to cover these transactions

    Bulk Charge/Ship of Orders  - have a checkbox next to each order on Order screen for batch processing

    • Similar to the Bulk Archive suggestion above. If we had this feature it would make things faster for the merchants who ship the goods and send tracking information outside of GC, but capture the funds and mark the orders as shipped in GC at the end of the day.
    • With the new feature added in September we now have one extra step (Charge, Ship, Confirm Shipping, Archive). If the feature above is not possible in the short term, is it possible GC Devs to make Shipping Confirmation step an option that we can turn off?

    Capture the partial amount  - full amount is authorized but order changed so we won't be charging the full amount.

    • This happens rarely, but when we need to charge an order partially we have to charge the full amount then do a partial refund. Customers get confused when they see the fully charged amount on the statment, it brings unneccesary overhead to servers, and we better not to forget refunding after we charge or we can get chargebacks. Current Charge buttons on Orders tab can be left unchanged, but it would be nice to have a partial-charge function in the order details. I believe this feature can also be used for partial shipments.

    Multi-currencies -