By : Admin

It’s been a year since Google Inc. launched its much-anticipated payment service, and most of us would be curious whether a company known best for its search engine can deliver a money service as good as industry leader PayPal. However, Google Checkout is much easy to use. It gives better display of your account options and transaction could be completed in fewer steps.

Both are free to set up and make payments, and signing up is easy but Checkout works well as an online wallet, and PayPal functions more like a bank account. Also Google accepts payments via credit or debit cards only, while PayPal lets you withdraw funds from a regular bank account.

The highlight of Checkout is its consistency and simplicity. On the other hand PayPal’s look and feel varies, and it’s not as seamless as Checkout. And Like Checkout, PayPal offers merchants various ways to integrate the service with their own online stores. That’s good because sole proprietors will have different needs from a large merchant. But while the back end may vary, Checkout manages to make the front end appear consistent to the customer.

Google claims tens of thousands of merchants accepting Checkout, compared with millions claimed by PayPal. Checkout isn’t accepted where it counts. Also, online auctioneer eBay Inc, which owns PayPal, doesn’t allow its auction sellers to accept payments from Checkout. Unlike Checkout, PayPal sometimes lets you make one-time payments without creating an account.

Checkout will sometimes give merchants your billing address and the last four digits of your credit card as well, while PayPal says it won’t unless you use the one-time option. On the other hand, PayPal shares your e-mail address with merchants that request it, while Checkout lets you keep that private and Google will forward receipts and other important e-mails to you.

Also, With PayPal, you can receive money in about 50 countries, while Checkout accepts US and UK merchants only. And while PayPal is offered in 17 currencies, Checkout deals only with dollars and pounds. Most importantly, Checkout won’t let you receive money with regular accounts, you’d need a special merchant account and provide a Social Security number or federal tax identification number.

With Checkout, you either have a regular account for making payments only or a merchant account for receiving payments. PayPal offers three types of accounts, all letting people send and receive payments, but each with different fees and restrictions. You also have additional options within each account type to boost your trust level.

With both Checkout and PayPal, consumers are charged nothing to send money or make payments. While in Checkout Merchants are charged based on transaction amounts, fees depend on your account type With PayPal. The crux of the matter is, Checkout is much simpler than the PayPal however, until it is more widely accepted and adopted by merchants we have to deal with PayPal’s complexities to fully engage in e-commerce.

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