Google Checkout Buyer Experience

This section describes your customer's experience in completing an order with Google Checkout. During this process, the buyer progresses through four different pages beginning with a page on your site that displays a Google Checkout button and culminating with the Google Checkout Order Confirmation page. In addition, the Google Checkout shopping cart demo demonstrates several of the shopping cart's most popular features.

The following steps explain the buyer's experience on these pages.

1. The Google Checkout order process begins when the customer shops on your site and adds items to the Google Checkout shopping cart. Each time the customer adds an item to the cart, the shopping cart expands to display its items. The cart includes several controls, allowing the customer to change the quantity of each item in the cart or to remove items from the cart.

   The image below displays a website that uses the Google Checkout shopping cart. The page displays four products, and a button below each product allows a customer to add that product to the shopping cart. In the image, the customer's shopping cart contains two items.

   

2. When the customer clicks the Google Checkout button in the cart, the cart will send information about the items in the shopping cart to Google. Google Checkout will then display the Sign In/Sign Up page, which shows the items in the customer's order and the shipping options available for the order. The Sign In/Sign Up page, which is shown below, also allows the customer to create a new Google Account or log in to an existing account.

   

   If Google detects a cookie indicating that the customer already has a Google Account and the account already contains credit card information, the right side of this page will display the email address for that account. In this case, the customer will only need to enter the password for that account. If the customer has recently shopped with Google Checkout and has a valid cookie, the Sign In/Sign Up page may not appear at all, in which case the customer will proceed directly to the Place Order page. The interface will also change slightly for customers who have a Google Account but do not have a credit card associated with their account.

3. After the customer creates a new Google Account or signs in to an existing account, Google will display the Place Order page. This page, which is shown below, lists the items in the customer's order and the shipping options available for the order. The Shipping Information and Tax Setup pages explains how to configure your shipping options and tax rates. The Place Order page also lets the customer choose the shipping address for the order and the credit card to charge for the order. In addition, the Place Order page allows the customer to choose whether to share her email address with you or receive promotional email from you.

   

   The Place Order page also displays Google's billing policy and can also display information about your return policy.

   Email Address Sharing and Forwarding

   When a transaction occurs, Google always provides you with an email address to contact the buyer. You can send correspondence to the buyer's email address for order processing issues and, if the buyer consented to receive promotional email, for marketing purposes (see Google Checkout Program Policies and Guidelines, section 1).

   As shown in the screenshot of the Place Order page shown above, Google does offer buyers the option of keeping their email address confidential. Depending on the buyer's preferences, Google will send you either the email address that the buyer used to register with Google or an email address that forwards through Google to the buyer's registered email address. If the buyer prefers to forward email through Google and decides that he or she no longer wants to receive email from a specific merchant, the buyer can deactivate email forwarding from a specific merchant at any time.

4. When the customer clicks the Place your order now button on the Place Order page, Google starts to process the order and displays the Order Confirmation page. This page thanks the customer for completing the order and also displays a link to your site so the customer can continue shopping.

   

5. In addition, after confirming an order to complete the checkout process, the buyer can refer to her Purchase History page to track the status of the order. The image below shows a sample Purchase History page for a shipped order.

   

   Note: The Purchase History page displays a link below the order history that allows the buyer to contact you with a question about the order. For example, the buyer could ask to change the shipping address for the order or to request a refund for the order. Google will then send you an email with the buyer's question. If the buyer requests a refund, Google does not automatically process a refund or cancel the buyer's order. Google just forwards the request from the buyer and you can issue a refund or cancel the order in the Merchant Center.