Signing Up with Google Checkout

This section explains how to become a Google Checkout merchant and begin to integrate your online store.

1. Go to http://checkout.google.com/sell/signup to sign up for a Google Checkout merchant account. Complete the sign-up process and provide valid values for all fields. You will need the federal tax ID number for your business or a credit card and your Social Security number.

2. Sign in to your merchant account at https://checkout.google.com/sell to locate your Merchant ID. You need your merchant ID to build Google Checkout buttons and to construct the URL to which your HTML forms will send order information.

   After signing in to your account, click on the Settings tab. Then click on the Integration link on the left side of the page. Your 10- or 15-digit Merchant ID and your Merchant Key will both be listed under the Account information header.

   
   
   

   Note: You should never share your Merchant Key with anyone, and no Google representative will ever ask you for your Merchant Key.

3. Under the Shopping cart post security header, uncheck the box to allow your account to use API requests with name-value pairs. After removing the check from the checkbox, click the Save button to save your settings.

   

   Note: You must use the XML API if you want to post digitally signed shopping carts.

Additional steps before launch

After signing up, you will need to complete the following additional tasks to launch Google Checkout for your store:

1. Add a Google Checkout button to the checkout pages on your online store. The button needs to be embedded in a form in the HTML for your pages. The button should appear next to your existing checkout buttons. Note: You may add more than one Google Checkout button to your page. However, each button must be contained within a form that submits to Google Checkout.

   See the Google Checkout Buttons for instructions for adding Google Checkout buttons to your site.

2. Modify the code for your online store so that the form containing the Google Checkout button also submits information about your customer's order. Please note that you must replace the string MERCHANT_ID with your actual merchant ID, which you should have located in step 2 above. Configure your form to submit orders to the following URL:

   <form method="POST"
   
       action="https://checkout.google.com/api/checkout/v2/checkoutForm/Merchant/MERCHANT_ID">
   

   Your code needs to include information about the items in your customer's shopping cart in hidden input fields in the form that displays the Google Checkout button. The form will also contain information about the shipping options that the customer can select and the taxes that should be added to the order.

   See the How Checkout Works section for instructions for adding the hidden input fields to the form on your web page.

3. To ensure a positive, consistent experience for your customers, please ensure that your site complies with the Google Checkout API integration checklist. The checklist provides guidelines for Google Checkout button placement, the checkout order flow and branding.

4. After you have thoroughly tested your Google Checkout implementation, update your entire site so that your customers can choose to complete their orders with Google Checkout. Please make sure that you are using the correct Merchant ID. You will receive an error if you try to process orders using the wrong Merchant ID.