5 ms·

Why we Disabled Google Checkout / Google Wallet on our Site

64 points by japaget 14y ago

lmm 14y ago
Because Database Error? I guess that's a good enough reason.
- webmonkeyuk 14y ago
  They were scared of getting too many users and their site falling over ;)
- EwanToo 14y ago
  I guess at least the weaknees.com ecommerce website is hosted on a different site, so their blog getting a bit of traffic hasn't taken it down...
- vhf 14y ago
  Yep. If someone is reading this comment, please install at least a simple caching system for wordpress. Hypercache is the simplest and does the job quite well with absolutely no hassle. It will save you at least 90% of the 30-or-so DB queries per page.
  - EwanToo 14y ago
    I still get something like 100 visitors a day to an old blog post [1] I did on wordpress performance, and emails most weeks asking for additional information. It's slightly depressing that wordpress itself doesn't ship with a decent basic caching function out of the box 1 - http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/900/10-million-hits-a-day-with-wordpress-using-a-15-server http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/900/10-million-hits-a-day-with...
    - vhf 14y ago
      I strongly agree. Your blog post has been in my bookmarks for 6 months, working with a lot of WPs I'm referring to it several times a month ! Great ressource, thank you !
      - EwanToo 14y ago
        I'm glad you find it useful :)
    - bduerst 14y ago
      That... that is an incredibly helpful walkthrough. It would have been nice if you included vsftpd or some other ftp program too - but bookmarked nonetheless.
      - vhf 14y ago
        The question is... do your really need FTP ? See, he installed ssh and allowed it through the firewall. IMO, who needs ftp when you have sftp ? (please read this question as : "Do you really want to use an old and crappy protocol when you have a decent, recent, secure protocol which, by the way, is certainly supported by your favorite FTP client ?")
        EwanToo 14y ago
        Exactly right yes, there's really no excuse for using plain FTP anymore, and FTP over SSL is just a mess.
        bduerst 14y ago
        Good point. I should probably put vanilla FTP to the wayside and move onto sftp.
    - yardie 14y ago
      I'm probably one of those visitors that visited your site on how to optimize my own blog.
mike-cardwell 14y ago
Working Google Cache URL: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2012/09/why-we-disabled-google-checkout-google-wallet-on-our-site/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...
paulhauggis 14y ago
Google isn't a payment company and because of this, they don't know how to run Google checkout properly. Both Amazon and Google automate their customer service for anyone using their checkout services. This is unacceptable to me as a business owner. Paypal isn't perfect, but at least they're in the business of payments. It's not a side business.
patio11 14y ago
Note that bit about Paypal phone support being responsive and helpful: true to my experience.
corbet 14y ago
This is why LWN has never jumped into Google Checkout. Google is a great company in a lot of ways, but they just don't do customer service. When it comes to your revenue stream, it's really important to have somebody you can actually talk to.
Lasher 14y ago
The only real issue with Paypal is unfortunately a huge one if you're unlucky enough to get caught up in it - their overly-aggressive "holds" on funds in accounts. Other than that their customer service is better, their site easier to use, and they have the benefit of a huge network effect already in place. Paypal even called me a couple of days ago to verify that a transaction (I was the buyer) was legitimate. In the past they would have just rejected it and left it up to me to contact them to convince them otherwise.
bencxr 14y ago
I would not be surprised if this "issue" gets resolved within a few weeks or so. I had problems with getting my own wallet to work on a Google apps domain account and that is how long it took them to get it working (yes, I know weakness.com is a commercial account, but google doesn't appear to be prioritizing it). I wonder if weakness.com would reinstate the payment method at that time.
moonboots 14y ago
The payment processing fee structure almost incentivizes these customer support nonresponses. If I'm a small company experiencing technical problems with payments, I'm losing ~95% on each error while the payment processor is losing the remaining sliver. For a startup, these sales are critical, but for the payment processor, the fees on these low volume transactions are chump change. I can only hope a bigger customer is experiencing similar issues so the bug fix can be expedited. My only recourses are switching payment processors and generating some bad publicity through a blog post.

64 points by japaget 14y ago

lmm 14y ago

Because Database Error? I guess that's a good enough reason.

webmonkeyuk 14y ago
They were scared of getting too many users and their site falling over ;)
EwanToo 14y ago
I guess at least the weaknees.com ecommerce website is hosted on a different site, so their blog getting a bit of traffic hasn't taken it down...
vhf 14y ago
Yep. If someone is reading this comment, please install at least a simple caching system for wordpress. Hypercache is the simplest and does the job quite well with absolutely no hassle. It will save you at least 90% of the 30-or-so DB queries per page.
- EwanToo 14y ago
  I still get something like 100 visitors a day to an old blog post [1] I did on wordpress performance, and emails most weeks asking for additional information. It's slightly depressing that wordpress itself doesn't ship with a decent basic caching function out of the box 1 - http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/900/10-million-hits-a-day-with-wordpress-using-a-15-server http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/900/10-million-hits-a-day-with...
  - vhf 14y ago
    I strongly agree. Your blog post has been in my bookmarks for 6 months, working with a lot of WPs I'm referring to it several times a month ! Great ressource, thank you !
    - EwanToo 14y ago
      I'm glad you find it useful :)
  - bduerst 14y ago
    That... that is an incredibly helpful walkthrough. It would have been nice if you included vsftpd or some other ftp program too - but bookmarked nonetheless.
    - vhf 14y ago
      The question is... do your really need FTP ? See, he installed ssh and allowed it through the firewall. IMO, who needs ftp when you have sftp ? (please read this question as : "Do you really want to use an old and crappy protocol when you have a decent, recent, secure protocol which, by the way, is certainly supported by your favorite FTP client ?")
      - EwanToo 14y ago
        Exactly right yes, there's really no excuse for using plain FTP anymore, and FTP over SSL is just a mess.
      - bduerst 14y ago
        Good point. I should probably put vanilla FTP to the wayside and move onto sftp.
  - yardie 14y ago
    I'm probably one of those visitors that visited your site on how to optimize my own blog.

mike-cardwell 14y ago

Working Google Cache URL: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2012/09/why-we-disabled-google-checkout-google-wallet-on-our-site/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...

paulhauggis 14y ago

Google isn't a payment company and because of this, they don't know how to run Google checkout properly. Both Amazon and Google automate their customer service for anyone using their checkout services. This is unacceptable to me as a business owner. Paypal isn't perfect, but at least they're in the business of payments. It's not a side business.

patio11 14y ago

Note that bit about Paypal phone support being responsive and helpful: true to my experience.

corbet 14y ago

This is why LWN has never jumped into Google Checkout. Google is a great company in a lot of ways, but they just don't do customer service. When it comes to your revenue stream, it's really important to have somebody you can actually talk to.

Lasher 14y ago

The only real issue with Paypal is unfortunately a huge one if you're unlucky enough to get caught up in it - their overly-aggressive "holds" on funds in accounts. Other than that their customer service is better, their site easier to use, and they have the benefit of a huge network effect already in place. Paypal even called me a couple of days ago to verify that a transaction (I was the buyer) was legitimate. In the past they would have just rejected it and left it up to me to contact them to convince them otherwise.

bencxr 14y ago

I would not be surprised if this "issue" gets resolved within a few weeks or so. I had problems with getting my own wallet to work on a Google apps domain account and that is how long it took them to get it working (yes, I know weakness.com is a commercial account, but google doesn't appear to be prioritizing it). I wonder if weakness.com would reinstate the payment method at that time.

moonboots 14y ago

The payment processing fee structure almost incentivizes these customer support nonresponses. If I'm a small company experiencing technical problems with payments, I'm losing ~95% on each error while the payment processor is losing the remaining sliver. For a startup, these sales are critical, but for the payment processor, the fees on these low volume transactions are chump change. I can only hope a bigger customer is experiencing similar issues so the bug fix can be expedited. My only recourses are switching payment processors and generating some bad publicity through a blog post.