We brought you the news of Google integrating its “Google Wallet” service into Gmail a few days ago. Now it seems that the rise of the Google Wallet service will be associated with the demise of the Google Checkout service.
Google is reportedly shutting down Google Checkout, the payment service that never really took off as it was always overshadowed by PayPal. In the next 6 months Google Checkout will be totally scrapped in favour of a sole focus on Google Wallet. The exact date for receiving (or sending) the last payment by Google Checkout is November 20th 2013.
Existing users of the Google Checkout service will be switched over to the Google Wallet service but this does not offer a true alternative in itself. This is because Google Wallet does not provide payment processing but a authentication and a front-end for buyers.
For merchants selling using Google Checkout, they are encouraged to switch to alternative payment processing methods like Braintree, Shopify and Freshbooks – all of which Google have arranged a special discount with for moving Google Checkout users.
For more information about what the Google Checkout closure could mean for you, see here.
