Date: Sunday, April 22, 2007
Google Checkout arrives in the United Kingdom
After the successful introduction of Checkout in the United States in 2006, Google has extended availability of its online payment system in the United Kingdom. Known as ‘gbuy’ among the Internet community, Checkout provides a central clearance facility for credit card transactions between customers and retailers online.
Google designed Checkout with the intention of increasing its revenue from advertising. Since its launch in the US, it has offered retailers a discount of $10 worth of free order processing for every $1 spent on advertising with the Internet search engine giant. Retailers in the UK will benefit from a similar incentive scheme - £10 of orders processed free of charge for every £1 of advertising spend.
Google stresses that Checkout is not intended as a rival to PayPal, but instead offers an alternative service. Unlike PayPal, it only allows credit card payments and does not have the facility for users to set up their own payment accounts into which they can transfer money. While Checkout has had a healthy take-up of customers in the United States in the past year, PayPal still dominates the online payment system market.
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