Rich’s WebWorld

Google’s Checkout ecommerce solution has not been the success they had hoped for. Even with sweeteners like free credit card processing, it is still struggling against PayPal in market share. But there are signs they are beginning to make progress.

The first of these was when eBay banned the use of Google Checkout. Sure, they own PayPal and would prefer members to use it. It makes them money. But Checkout is such a small share of purchases, it should have been no more annoying that a gnat. Yet eBay saw something important enough to outright ban them.

Now Yahoo has come out with a program that looks surprisingly similar to Google’s Checkout. In fact, it is called PayPal “Checkout.” They have offered free processing fees until the end of the year just like Google. And they have offered $100 credit toward their pay per click program, not the $50 offer Google made. Of course, that difference might reflect the ratio in advertising value.

Yahoo claims this is an extension of their strategic relationship with eBay. Well, as often as eBay’s ads show up on Google, there must be a “strategic relationship” there as well. It seems to me this is just another case of Yahoo and Google trying to one-up each other.

It does sound tempting to take Yahoo up on their $100 offer. However, my experience managing some other Yahoo (Overture) accounts makes me shy away from it. I don’t like waiting for Yahoo to approve or disapprove ads. I’ve had ads disapproved for a one-word change. And Yahoo has dropped to less than a one-quarter search market share.

Maybe I can live without that frustration.

– Rich Pulham