eBay has PayPal. Google has Google Checkout. And now Amazon will have Bill Me Later.

According to the press release via Techcrunch, Amazon will invest in Bill Me Later and also add Bill Me Later as a payment option on Amazon.com.

Bloomberg broke reported the news @ 3:05pm that Google Checkout canceled its party protesting the ban of Checkout on eBay. And so ends the first skirmish (Google Checkout announces party -> eBay pulls listings from Google AdWords) in the bigger battle.

Here’s the statement from the Google Checkout blog:

eBay Live attendees have plenty of activities to keep them busy this week in Boston, and we did not want to detract from that activity. After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference. Google is constantly reaching out to new users and sellers, and we are available to privately discuss any matters of concern with individuals as they relate to Google products. Interested parties may contact us at checkout-reply@google.com.

Hat tip to my anonymous source who alerted me yesterday to eBay pulling its AdWords ads.

For those of you who are just now coming up to speed on this skirmish:
Google party at eBay event will protest Checkout ban - CNET News
eBay No Longer on Google AdWords - ComparisonEngines
eBay and Google: The Gloves Are Off, It’s Getting Ugly ProStores Scoop - AuctionBytes
Animosity Escalates as eBay Pulls Google AdWords, Reallocates Dollars - ClickZ
eBay vs. Google: eBay says, normal course of business… um, ok…right - eBay Strategies
eBay Pulls Google Paid-Search Ads To Protest Google Checkout Moves - Search Engine Land
eBay Halting its Google AdWords Advertising? - Search Engine Journal

PayPal and TheFind launch PayPal Shopping - or at least that’s what I’m calling it. The domain for the site isn’t actually paypalshopping.com (some clever entrepreneur owns that one), but actually paypal.thefind.com. The site allows shoppers to see just products from stores that offer PayPal as a payment option.

According to Siva Kumar, CEO of TheFind, “there are 175 million products from 500,000 stores on TheFind, while paypal.thefind.com has 50 million products from 200,000 stores.” Paypal has long offered a directory of shops which accept PayPal, but this new site offers a rich shopping experience as opposed to a list of shops ranked by volume.

There is no revenue split among TheFind and PayPal on the site - TheFind takes whatever it makes through it’s sponsored and graphical ads and PayPal monetizes through its normal transaction fees.

Siva explained that the UI for paypal.thifind.com is slightly different - you can see the PayPal logo/icon in a variety of places - but besides the focus on PayPal only merchants, everything else (the algorithm, for example) is the same.

When asked whether there would be promotion of the site by both parties, Siva declined to give details but hinted that there’s definitely a relationship beyond just launching the site.

While PayPal is obviously a leader in the payments space with “revenues last quarter of $439 million” (Business Week June 18), the company is trying to fend off competition from the likes of Google Checkout which is assimilating everything in it’s path. Google Checkout attracted small businesses, then offered incredible promotions to get consumers to sign up, which led more small businesses to integrate as the user base grew and free Adwords credits were doled out, and it has just snowballed from there. I’ve voiced my concerns - especially around customer ownership - but that’s not stopping 94% of merchants from making a quick buck or 10.

Google Checkout is now well integrated into Google Adwords and Google Base/Google Product Search:

Yahoo! and PayPal are testing a similar concept for Yahoo! Search Marketing:

This new PayPal shopping site shows me that PayPal isn’t going to sit by and just watch Google Checkout have all the fun.

As for TheFind, this shows what a scrappy start up can get done and some of the advantages the company has over shopping comparison engines which don’t crawl the web and therefore have a limited set of merchants. Expect TheFind to strike further partnerships like this with any affinity type program - think credit cards, causes (similar to PriceGrabber’s ShopGreen), schools, etc.

Friendly reminder that I’ll be at eBay Live! speaking on buySAFE’s invitation only luncheon panel on multi-channel e-commerce this Friday. Make sure to RSVP if you want to attend.

Diane Westgate - with google since end of last yr.
launched in june 06

on avg., 63% of carts are abandoned
why do they abandon?
-repetetive data entry
-too many accounts
-fear of sharing personal data

the opportunity - grow ecommerce by improving checkout
-streamline checkout process
-minimize number of accounts
-protect personal info

search -> find -> buy

value proposition
for buyers - conveninece, speed, confidence
for merchatns - more leads, more conversion, lower costs (free transaction processing on all checkout sales until 2008, beginning 2008, earn free transaction processing with AdWords)

fictitious retial co
black handbags - people are increasingly looking for checkout sellers

adwords and geckout
-promote biz with adwords
-get more traffic with geckout badge
-get higher sales conversion by offering streamlined checkout process
-lower your costs with free transaction processing

Dear Shopping Comparison Engines,

Sometimes you don’t listen to your merchants that clearly, but you do pay a little more attention to me. So I want to pass along some advice…

That nice little piece of JavaScript code which you ask merchants to place on their checkout page to track sales is not properly tracking sales through Google Checkout. And if you hadn’t noticed, Google Checkout is already a strong driver of sales for many small and medium sized merchants.

Which means that the conversion rate which you are reporting through that code is wrong for any merchant doing any business through Google Checkout. Now some of you have already told merchants that there’s nothing you can do about it and it’s Google’s problem. Well, lets try to be clear here…when the tracking code you’ve released doesn’t properly get reported when a sale goes through Checkout, that is your problem as the merchant will see consistent costs, but lower conversion rates. And if these merchants are smart, they will start to shift marketing spend to a seemingly more profitable channel and away from you.

In other words, even if it is Google that has to make a change, it’s still your problem.

Next time a merchant calls you up (I mean) emails you, don’t pass the buck. Because you’ll actually be passing the buck to another marketing channel (just what Google wants).

Please look into this tracking issue ASAP. You spend a couple million dollars a month on Adwords, I’d hope that you could talk to someone at Google about the problem.

Your friend,

ComparisonEngines.com

Updated: See below for more on Shopping.com and PayPal UK.

Since I’m not sure everyone who reads the blog checks out comments, I wanted to point out that an ad for Shopping.com is now showing up on eBay searches. Right now it’s pretty hidden (at the bottom of the page), and clicking through on the ad brings you to the Shopping.com homepage as opposed to being contextually relevant to an eBay search, but it’s a start. Thanks, Scot, for pointing this out!

This screenshot is from a search for halloween costumes:

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