Configure > Payments > Gateways

Google Checkout

Google Checkout lets your customers buy items from you quickly and securely using a Google username and password. You can use Google Checkout to charge customers' credit cards, track orders through your fulfillment process and receive order payments in your bank account. As such, Google Checkout touches each step of the customer's shopping experience, beginning with the customer's search for an item and continuing through the order checkout and fulfillment processes.

Google Checkout also works with AdWords, Google's search advertising program, to increase your sales and minimize your expenses. A Google Checkout badge will display next to your AdWords ads, helping shoppers notice your ads in their search results. In addition, for every dollar you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 worth of sales for free.

AbleCommerce has a full level 2 integration.  For more information, go to AbleCommerce's Google Checkout page newwindow.gif and sign-up today!

Google Overview

Google Checkout is not a payment gateway, but rather a replacement checkout system. Google Checkout can be considered a special kind of payment method. When Google Checkout is enabled, your customer's will see the "Google Checkout" button after adding an item to their basket.

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When this button is clicked, AbleCommerce sends the contents of the basket to Google and also redirects the user to Google's site.  The user can then create a new Google account or login to an existing one.  You can offer your customer real-time shipping rates, coupons, gift certificates, and an anonymous checkout experience.  

After the purchase is completed on the Google side, the customer will be provided a link to return to your store.

AbleCommerce provides a bidirectional interface to the Google system. The shopping experience is done with AbleCommerce, but the checkout process done with Google.  After the order is placed, the merchant can process orders from either AbleCommerce order administration or through the Google merchant account.   

If post-order processing is done from the Google merchant account, notifications are sent to AbleCommerce so that order records are kept in a correct state.

Google Processing Features

Once a payment is made, the following actions will be available through AbleCommere or Google's merchant interface.  The post order processing is bidirectional so you can initiate transactions from AbleCommerce or from your Google merchant account.  For more information and a complete list of features, please visit Google newwindow.gif

  • Capture - a full or partial transfer of funds from the cardholder's pending authorization to the merchant.

  • Partial Capture - where you can capture additional funds on what remains of the pending authorization.

  • Refund - when funds have been transferred to the merchant, and a full or partial refund is returned to the cardholder.  

  • Partial Refund - where multiple refunds to the customer are possible. A refund cannot exceed the last transaction amount or be greater than the remaining amount captured.

 

NOTE:

There may be additional features within your Google  account that have not been tested with  AbleCommerce.  If you enable unsupported features, you are doing so at your own risk.  

Google Limitations

The following issues have been identified in the Google checkout system.  Please make sure you understand these limitations before implementing Google Checkout in your AbleCommerce store.   

  • Live Shipping Rates - Google has a maximum 3 second response time to obtain live shipping rates from AbleCommerce.  When using integrated shipping carriers, you will need to limit the number of shipping methods available to your customers.  An exact figure cannot be determined, however, our testing show that 2-4 TOTAL shipping methods will typically work.   

    IMPORTANT:

    If you use live shipping rates and the allowed response time is exceeded, the default shipping rate may cause the final order amount to be incorrect or allow your customer to pick an invalid shipping service. This will likely require you to contact your customer directly to resolve any issues.  

  • Multiple Shipments - Google does not allow you to ship products to multiple addresses in a single order.

  • Multiple Warehouses - Using multiple warehouses in AbleCommerce will create multiple shipments.  Since Google does not support more than one shipment, you need to make sure that you have a common shipping method available for all products in the order. This is especially true if you have products with special shipping considerations.   

  • Product Personalization - AbleCommerce allows a user to enter customized text for a product.  Google cannot support this feature.

  • Product Restrictions - Some products are unacceptable for use with Google Checkout.  In AbleCommerce, you can exclude a product from using Google Checkout.  If a customer purchases an item that has been excluded, the Google Checkout button will not appear as a checkout option.  For a complete list of exclusions, see Google's content policy newwindow.gif.

  • Shipping Coupons - AbleCommerce shipping coupons will not work with Google Checkout.  Order and Product coupons can be still be used.

  • Customer Profiles - Google's privacy policies prohibit AbleCommerce from creating a user account based on the order data.  This means that your customer's will not be able to return to your store and use the customer account features such as viewing order history.  However, Google does provide an option for your customer to track their order.

  • Digital Delivery - Since Google prohibits a customer account to be created, the ability to offer digital delivery for Google Checkout is not going to work in your AbleCommerce store.

  • Credit Card authorizations - Google Checkout authorizations will expire in 7 days.

  • GoDaddy SSL Certificates - The SSL certificates issued by GoDaddy accounts using Plesk have some incompatibility with Google Checkout.  Contact GoDaddy hosting for help installing an intermediate certificate.  The error you might receive looks something like "javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException...".

Enable Google Checkout

Before you begin, make sure that you have the Merchant ID and Merchant Key for your Google account.  If you don't have this information, please see the next section, "To Configure your Google Merchant Account".

  1. From the Payment Gateways page, click the ADD GATEWAY button.

  2. From the Add Gateway page, click the GOOGLE CHECKOUT button.

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  3. You will now be on the Add Gateway configuration page for Google Checkout.

  4. The first setting is called Post Security.  It is simply an indicator that AbleCommerce will send digitally signed XML to the Google gateway.

    google_postsecurity.gif

  5. The second setting is your Callback URL which will be used in the next section, "To Configure your Google Merchant Account".

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  6. The third setting is an indicator of your Callback method.  AbleCommerce requires XML.

    google_callbackmethod.gif

  7. Enter your Google Checkout Merchant ID into the field provided.

    google_keys.gif  

  8. Enter your Google Checkout Merchant Key into the field provided.  

  9. In the field named Expiration Minutes, you may enter a value after which the Google Cart expires.  The default is 30 minutes.

    google_expire.gif  

  10. In the field named Default Ship Rate, you may enter a value (in dollars) that will be used if the live shipping rates are not returned within the allowed time limits.

    google_shiprate.gif

  11. Choose whether Coupons are enabled or disabled within the Google Checkout page.

    google_coupons.gif

  12. Choose whether Gift Certificates are enabled or disabled within the Google Checkout page.

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  13. The option to Use Basic Auth will enhance your security but requires additional server configuration.  

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    If you wish to enable this setting, please see the section below to "To Enable Basic Authentication".

  14. Choose the Gateway Environment:

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    • Production - used for processing live transactions

    • Sandbox - used for development and testing

  15. Debug Mode is an optional feature and should only be enabled at the direction of AbleCommerce support.

    debug_mode.gif

  16. At the bottom of the page, click the SAVE button.

  17. Keep the AbleCommerce Google configuration page up so you can copy the URL for the next step.

Configure your Google Merchant Account

  1. Go to Google's website and login to your Checkout merchant account.

  2. From the top navigation bar, click on the Settings menu item.

  3. From the left column, click on the Integration link.

  4. Check the box for Shopping cart post security.  This will enable digitally signed XML shopping carts for added security.

  5. In the section API callback URL, enter the Callback URL provided on the AbleCommerce configuration page.  See Step 5, in the section above.
    Note    : The live integration of Google Checkout requires you to have SSL enabled.

    google_apiurl.gif

  6. For Callback method, make sure you have XML selected.

  7. Click the Save button when finished.

  8. If you need your Google merchant ID or Google merchant key, they can be found in the right column of the Integration settings page.

    google_account.gif

  9. From the left column, click on the Preferences link.

  10. Choose your Order processing option:

    google_process.gif

    • Automatically authorize the buyer's credit card for the full amount of the order.

    • Automatically authorize and charge the buyer's credit card.

We highly recommend that you choose the "authorize" option due to the unreliability of shipping rates being returned within the allowed time frame.

  1. Click the Save preferences button when finished.

Enable Basic Authentication

Google Checkout includes a custom basic authentication processor.  If you wish to enable this security feature, your system administrator will be required to setup a special configuration on the server.  
Specifically, there are two available configuration options:

Option A)

For this option, Google sends the basic authentication header properly and AbleCommerce can validate access.  This provides the security of basic authentication with minimal server configuration.

  1. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

  2. Find the /Google/ folder and open the properties page.

  3. Click on the Directory Security tab.

  4. Click the EDIT... button.

  5. Un-check all the authentication methods except for "Enable anonymous access".  

Option B)

For this option, both IIS and AbleCommerce are performing authentication checks.  This provides a higher level of security.

  1. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

  2. Find the /Google/ folder and open the properties page.

  3. Click on the Directory Security tab.

  4. Click the EDIT... button.

  5. Un-check all authentication methods except for Basic authentication.  

  6. Create a user on the server, using the merchant id as the username and the merchant key as the password.

  7. Assign the user to the /Google/ folder.

Testing Google Checkout in Sandbox mode

Google provides a developer "sandbox" where you can test your site with Google Checkout. To use the sandbox you must have created a developer account and used that account in the configuration of the gateway.

  1. Edit the Google Checkout gateway configuration page in AbleCommerce.

  2. In the section called Gateway Environment, select the option for Sandbox Environment.

  3. At the bottom of the page, click the SAVE button.

  4. Be sure to change the Gateway Environment to Production before processing real credit card transactions.

 

 
Related Topics

Configure > Payment Methods
Create your own payment methods that you accept.

Manage > Orders > Payments (Credit Card Transactions)
Process credit card payments and refunds online.

Manage > Orders > Payments (Offline Payments)
Record other types of payments.