Google will officially retire its Checkout service on November 20, urges US merchants to consider Google Wallet

Google on Monday announced it is killing Google Checkout, its online payment processing service, on November 20, 2013. The company is offering merchants a six-month warning to figure out where to go next.

Google officially replaced Checkout with Wallet back in September 2011. The company has been building out the successor recently, and now claims the new platform “enables merchants to meet the demands of a multi-screen world where consumers shop in-stores, at their desks and on their mobile devices.”

Google is giving its users the following information to before the aforementioned kill date, depending on which camp they fall into:

• Merchants without their own payment processing will need to transition to a third-party alternative solution within six months.
• US merchants with payment processing can apply for Google Wallet Instant Buy.
• Merchants selling through Google-hosted marketplaces (such as Google Play, Chrome Web Store, and Offers Marketplace) will be unaffected.

For those in the first group, Google is not offering a replacement processing solution for physical goods and services. The company has, however, partnered with Braintree, Shopify, and Freshbooks; neither of these are ideal as they all still require a transition, but at least Google has negotiated discounted migration options for its Checkout users.

“We recognize this transition may be difficult; it impacts you and your business,” Google says. “We’re committed to helping you with a smooth transition. While we are unable to offer a direct replacement for Google Checkout, we are continuing to invest in a variety of exciting new payments products to meet real world needs for both buyers and sellers.”

Those who find themselves in the second group should know about both the Google Wallet API and the Instant Buy Android API. While the former has been around for a while and works for mobile sites, the latter was just launched last week at Google I/O 2013 and lets developers integrate payment features into Android apps.

Those in the last group will continue to be supported. Google plans to automatically transition them to the Google Wallet Merchant Center in the next few weeks.

Google has been doing quite a bit of spring cleaning recently, though this particular axing appears to have been delayed and slightly more thought out. The company likely wanted to get some of its alternatives together and give users a lot of time to transition. Both of those are critical when it comes to people’s livelihoods.

See also – Google to shut down Calendar features, Google Sync, Google Calendar Sync, Issue Tracker Data API, and Punchd and Google to axe Google Reader on July 1 as part of larger round of app closures

Top Image Credit: Dimitris Petridis