Google Checkout is an alternative payment method that many sites will want to offer to their customers. It allows the customer to checkout straight from the shopping cart page without going through the entire regular checkout process, and allows the customer to remain anonymous if desired.
Registering a Sandbox Account
NOTE: The URLs and images shown in these directions are for Google's sandbox environment.
1. Navigate to http://sandbox.google.com/checkout and click the "Sign up now to start shopping" link.
2. Enter your personal and payment information to complete registration. NOTE: This will eventually be your merchant account login information.
3. Next, create your merchant account by going to http://sandbox.google.com/checkout/sell and logging in with the account you just created.
NOTE: You may be asked to verify your email address at this point.
4. Select "Yes, we have a login email and password for these other services," and then "Yes, we'd like to use our existing Google Account for Google Checkout. Enter the password for the account you just created
5. Enter your company's contact information and TAX info, and agree to the terms of service.
6. Click the "Specify a Bank Account" button to set up your account to receive payments
7. Fill out the banking information for your company and submit the form.
8. Now that the account information is complete, click "Tools" and then "Existing Carts" from the Google menus, then click AspDotNetStorefront.com from the list of existing carts.
9. Make note of the Google vendor ID and Google merchant key information shown, and then click on the "Settings" tab.
10. Click on the Integration link on the left, then uncheck the "My company will only post digitally signed carts" checkbox, and enter in your store's API Callback URL. This should be http://www.yourstore.com/gcCallback.aspx.
NOTE: The Google sandbox does not require an SSL certificate, however your site will have to have one installed before you can process live transactions. Only certificates issued by a certificate authority recognized by Google will work. See their list at http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=57856
Enabling Google Checkout in the Admin Console
Setting up Google Checkout is broken down into 4 different sections. For many stores, only the 'Basic Setup' will be required, however all store admins should read through all 4 sections, to make sure none of the settings discussed affect their store.
Basic Setup
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin console, go to the Site Configuration Wizard page.
2. Click the Basic Settings link next to Google Checkout.
3. At the very minimum, enter the values you got from Google for 'Merchant Key' and 'Merchant ID', and make sure that 'Enable Google Checkout' is set to yes. NOTE: If you are just testing, use 'Sandbox Merchant Key' and 'Sandbox Merchant ID' instead, and make sure that 'Use Sandbox' is set to true (the default).
4. Verify that the other optional settings are configured the way you want:
| Setting Name |
Description |
| Allow Anonymous Checkout |
This will allow customers to checkout without creating an account or providing any sensitive information to your site aside from a shipping address. Google will even allow customers to communicate with store admins through a false email address to remain anonymous. We strongly recommend that you set this to true, as it will often help increase conversions. |
| Send Store Receipt |
If this is set to true, customers will get a receipt from both Google Checkout and your store. |
| Tax Shipping |
This determines whether orders that are completed through Google Checkout should charge tax on shipping. |
| Default Tax Rate |
While Google Checkout has its own built-in tax calculation feature, orders from AspDotNetStorefront software ignore those rates. If you need to charge your customers tax, you will have to set up tax rates within your software, and Google will make a callback to your site to request the rate to use. If the callback to your site for live tax rates fails, or you are not using tax tables (see below), this value will be used as your tax rate on all Google Checkout orders. |
| Use Tax Tables |
If this is set to true, Google Checkout will contact your store once the customer has entered their address and get the tax rates you would charge from the taxes you have set up
in the admin console. If false, the Default Tax Rate set above will be used. |
Advanced Setup
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin console, go to the Site Configuration Wizard page.
2. Click the Advanced Settings link next to Google Checkout, and adjust these settings as desired:
| Setting Name |
Description |
| Live Checkout Button |
The URL to the button your site will display on the shopping cart page to begin checkout through Google. This should not need to be changed. |
| SandBox Checkout Button |
The URL to the button your site will display on the shopping cart page to begin checkout through Google in test mode. This should not need to be changed. |
| Live Endpoint URL |
Do not change this value unless instructed to! |
| SandBox Endpoint URL |
Do not change this value unless instructed to! |
| Diagnostics Only |
Do not change this value unless instructed to! |
| Log File Name |
If logging is enabled (see below), this is the filename the application will create for the log. It will be created in the {root}/images folder. |
| Log Messages |
Sets whether or not to log requests/responses from Google. The log file is appended to for every request so it can become huge over time. Only enable this if you are having a problem with the Google Checkout integration on your site. |
| Authenticate Callback |
Do not change this value unless instructed to! |
Shipping Setup
1. In the AspDotNetStorefront admin console, go to the Site Configuration Wizard page.
2. Click the Shipping Settings link next to Google Checkout, and enter in the addresses you want to use for these settings:
The addresses set on this page (one for a domestic address and one for an overseas address) are used as the 'destination' address when calculating shipping rates for a Google Checkout order if Google is unable to use the customer's address for some reason. While the defaults will work fine for most stores, as this shouldn't happen often, it may be necessary to set an address that is more accurate for your store to avoid overcharging customers on shipping. For example, if you only ship to New Jersey, you should change the domestic address to one in New Jersey.
One other important setting is controlled here:
| Setting Name |
Description |
| Default Shipping Markup |
This multiplier is applied to shipping rates on orders through Google Checkout. For example, if this is set to 2.0, an order that would normally cost $1.50 to ship will be charged $3.00 instead. |
Carrier Calculated Shipping
If carrier calculated shipping is enabled, Google Checkout will calculate shipping costs for your customer, rather than contacting your site to see what to charge.
| Setting Name |
Description |
| Enable Carrier Calculated Shipping |
Turns this feature on/off. |
| Default Price |
This specifies a default shipping price to use if Google cannot calculate the rate for some reason. This can be set for each individual shipping method in the Options setting below. |
| Free Option |
If you want to offer free shipping, list the shipping method name(s) here. |
| Package |
The default package size to use for Google's shipping calculations. |
| Options |
This is a comma-separated list of shipping options (only ones supported by Google) that should be offered to your customers. You can also specify a default price that will be used if Google cannot calculate the price for that rate for some reason. For example, 'FedEx 2Day|20' tells Google to offer the customer FedEx 2nd day shipping, and to charge them $20 if it cannot compute its own rate. |
Troubleshooting
If you experience problems with Google Checkout, first log into your Google Checkout account, and view the error log. That is available by clicking on the Tools tab at the top of the Google page, then clicking on Integration Console from the menu on the right. Each error will have its own entry in the list, and should give you some idea of what the problem is. If you are unable to determine the fix from reviewing those logs or the steps below, contact support.
Q. I've set up Google Checkout, but when customers try to check out they are sent to my home page.
A. Check the following:
1. Verify that your MerchantID and MerchantKey AppConfigs do not contain any leading/trailing spaces or invalid characters.
2. Make sure you reset the cache after configuring Google Checkout, so the changes take effect.
3. Make sure your GoogleCheckout.UseSandbox AppConfig is properly set based on whether you're using live or test transactions.
4. Verify that the GoogleCheckout.DiagnosticsOnly AppConfig is set to false.
Q. My Google Checkout error logs say that they were unable to contact my server. Why are they doing that, and how do I correct this?
A. Google Checkout contacts your server to notify you of a new order, or get information for a customer trying to place an order (shipping rates, taxes, etc). Be sure that a callback URL has been specified, as directed in step 10 of the setup directions above. Be sure that the URL begins with https (an SSL certificate must be installed), and that the URL allows anonymous access.
FAQs
Q. Does Google offer support?
A. Yes, visit the
Google Checkout Support Center
Q.Do Google Checkout orders support ad-hoc transactions?
A. Google does not support 'merchant-initiated' partial transactions. Store admins will need to do partial captures or partial refunds through Google's page.
Q. What are the different ways that Google Checkout can provide merchants to offer coupons, gift certificates or discounts?
A. One tool that merchants can use is the Merchant Calculations API. It computes discounts after the buyer reviews the order. If this option is used, the customer will have the option to enter coupon or gift certificates codes on the Google Checkout Place Order page. This also requires the merchant to create and operate a fast, highly reliable web service to computer discounts (this service can also calculate tax and shipping costs). For more information, checkout the Merchant Calculations API page.
Note: Merchants in the U.K. cannot yet use the Merchant Calculations API to calculate coupons or gift certificates.
Another way is to use the Google Checkout Coupon Creator. It offers the following features:
- You can specify a coupon code to identify the offer.
- You can specify a discount value as an absolute amount (in dollars or British pounds).
- U.S. merchants can also specify a discount as a percentage of the order total. The discount will be provided before taxes or shipping charges are added to the order total.
- For U.K. merchants, the discount will be applied after taxes and shipping charges are added to the order total.
- You can specify that the coupon may only be used if the order total exceeds a specified amount.
- You can limit the number of times that each customer can use the coupon.
- You can make the coupon available to all customers or only to customers who have never purchased from you through Google Checkout.
- Buyers can enter one coupon per order for coupons created through the Google Checkout Coupon Creator.
- Lastly, the merchant can pass the discount as a separate item in the buyer's shopping cart with a negative price. This technique limits discounts to a fixed value.