Google Checkout launches with Citibank bonus
There was speculation for awhile about Google’s new payment service with many referring to it as Gbuy, Google Payments, or even Google Wallet. Well, it appears that Google Checkout it now live. Interestingly, they struck a deal with Citibank to offer $5 bonus in dividend dollars or 1000 Thank You points if you enroll your card by Aug 1 and make a purchase with the card using Google Checkout by Sept 15.
Looking over the site it appears that its focused on buyers and merchants, allowing businesses to use it on their websites to accept credit card purchases. To be honest, I was hoping it would have all the features of Paypal and compete directly with them, even though they said it wasn’t aimed at challenging Paypal. Since I have been selling on Ebay recently, I have been getting eaten up by fees. Anything to add competition is always good. I guess there’s the chance that they will add these features later but I won’t hold my breath.
In case anyone out there does run a business that could utilize this, they are charging 2% + 20 cents per transaction and you get $10 discount off fees from sales for every $1 you spend on AdWords. Should have known they would tie those together. The NYTimes has a pretty good article discussing the details of Google Checkout (Use bugmenot for a login).
June 29th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
It looks like you can register more than one card which makes even better. Since 1000 Thank you points can be redeemed(after you have accumulated enough) for gift cards or student loan repayments its about equal to $10. If you can find a cheap purchase (google videos for 99 cents?) you can make some money off this. In my case…1 dividend card, 3 thank you network cards ~$5+$30=$35-$4=$31. If someone else can find a cheaper item to purchase than their 99 cent videos, lemme know!