InsideGoogle

Google Checkout and PayPal Unveil Holiday Offers

Google’s Checkout and eBay’s PayPal unit are showing off their big holiday offers, designed to get you to use their services when making your holiday purchases online.

Google Checkout is giving $5-$50 off purchases at a number of online stores. You can get:

• $5 off orders over $30 - PCSuperstore, TheNerds.net, Cost Central, DayDeal.com, Eforcity.com, KitchenSource.com, ReStockIt.com, Cufflinks Depot, Precious Accents, UpTempoAir.com
• $5 off orders over $50 - ToolsForLess, AllBrands.com, Discount Dance Supply, Golfballs.com
• $10 off orders over $10 for new buyers only - Buy.com
• $10 off orders over $30 - Comp-U-Plus (Enter coupon code GOOGLE10), Mrs. Fields
• $10 off orders over $50 - HandHelditems.com (Enter coupon code googleoff10 prior to Checkout)
• $10 off orders over $60 - Aéropostale, Jockey.com, Your Electronic Warehouse, US-Mattress.com, DVD Empire, Flashlightz.com, Coffee Bean Direct, SelectBlinds.com, Stacks and Stacks Housewares, Discount Golf World
• $10 off orders over $75 - Beauty.com, drugstore.com
• $10 off orders over $100 - TigerDirect.com, WeaKnees.com (Enter coupon code holiday10), Comp USA, Software Surplus, Digital Foto Club, Dyscern, Focus Camera, SuppliesNet
• $15 off orders over $150 - MyJewelryBox.com, BowlingBall.com
• $20 off orders over $100 - LuggagePros.com, ArtSelect, Oriental Furniture, Designer Athletics, AdiamorEvesAddiction.com (Enter coupon code google20 prior to Checkout)
• $20 off orders over $200 - AreaRugs.com
• $50 off orders over $500 - TheFurniture.com, AJ Madison, Gem Stone King
• eBags.com Enter coupon code PAYGOOGC07 to get 20% off purchases.
• FoxStore.com Enter coupon code GOOG10 to get 10% off all purchases.
• Shoebuy.com Enter coupon code GOGOOG to get $5 off all purchases

What’s the best deal? All of them! You’ll have to figure out, based on the size of your purchase, which is the best savings for that particular item. One tip: Seperate items into multiple orders so you can get the discount multiple times.

The highest percentage discount: $10 off $30

The least useful but most exciting: Buy.com’s $10 off $10. If you’re a new customer enjoy it, everyone else just ignore. Here’s Buy.com’s page of items that are free or almost free after the discount is applied.

Potential best deal: 20% off everything at eBags. If only they sold more than bags.

PayPal’s holiday deal, I’m sad to say, tops or matches Google in almost every situation. They’re offering 20% cash back, up to $50, on purchases at 14 stores. At the same levels as Google’s offering:

• $30 - Google: $5 or $10 / PayPal: $6
• $50 - Google: $5 or $10 / PayPal: $10
• $60 - Google: $10 / PayPal: $12
• $75 - Google: $10 / PayPal: $15
• $100 - Google: $10 or 20 / PayPal: $20
• $150 - Google: $15 / PayPal: $30
• $200 - Google: $20 / PayPal: $40
• $500 - Google: $50 / PayPal: $50

I miss the good old days last year of $10 off $30 and $20 off $50. No major retailers offering that now.

November 29th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | PayPal, eBay, Checkout, Services | no comments

Google Wins, Like, Every Webware Award

You Gotta love the Webware 100 Awards. With ten winners per category, every multi-billion-dollar corporation can win multiple times, often in every category! Gee, it’s just like the Oscars!

Here’s what Google won:

Google Reader won in the Browsing category, Gmail won in the Communications category, Google won in the Data category, YouTube won in the Media category, GOOG-411 won in the Mobile category*, Gmail Mobile won in the Mobile category, Google Maps Mobile won in the Mobile category, Google AdWords/AdSense won in the Productivity and Commerce category, Google Calendar won in the Productivity and Commerce category, Google Docs won in the Productivity and Commerce category, Blogger, won in the Publishing category, Feedburner in the Publishing category, Google Analytics won in the Publishing category, and Google Maps won in the reference category.

Other companies:

My Yahoo - Browsing; Yahoo Mail - Communication, Yahoo Messenger - Communications; Yahoo Search - Data; Flickr - Media; Yahoo Video - Media; Yahoo OneSearch - Mobile; Yahoo Maps - Reference.

Internet Explorer - Browsing; Windows Live Hotmail - Communications; Windows Live Messenger - Communications; Windows Live Search - Data; TellMe - Mobile; Microsoft Office Live - Productivity and Commerce; Silverlight - Publishing; Microsoft Virtual Earch - Reference.

Everyone else makes an appearance, and in most categories, every major player is a winner. I love award shows where everyone wins. It’s like those Little Leagues where everyone gets a trophy and no one learns to be an adult.
(via The Google Analytics Blog)

* - cough, bullshit, cough. It’s a brand new service, and unless it feeds the homeless, it deserves nothing yet. Category filler.

July 11th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Calendar, Amazon, Ask, Analytics, Reader, eBay, Apple, PayPal, Docs, Spreadsheets, YouTube, Blogger, Google Maps, AdWords, Search, Advertising, Gmail, Email, AOL, Microsoft, AdSense, Products, Services, Yahoo, General | 5 comments

Shocker: People Stopped Using Google Checkout After Google Stopped Paying Them To

Seeking Alpha shows off this Compete.com chart showing how Google Checkout usage has fallen dramatically since December:

What happened after December? Well, Google stopped giving almost every Google Checkout user twenty dollars just for shopping. Like I said before, if you have to pay users to use your service, then it doesn’t deserve to succeed, and shoppers are agreeing. I don’t understand why Google Checkout needs to exist on websites like Buy.com, that have no problem processing credit card orders normally, and Google needs to find an excuse for their system. At least PayPal has a bank account.

April 30th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | PayPal, Checkout, Services, General | 9 comments

PayPal Unveils Security Key

Infoworld reports that PayPal, long a favored target of phishers and email spam, has come up with a measure designed to better protect its customers. For $5, any PayPal customer can order a little security keychain that displays a new password every 30 seconds. When logging into their accounts, those users would have to enter their regular passwords, then look on their keychain and enter the current password from there, too.

It’s a great idea, and one that’s been discussed and implemented on a smaller scale before. I’m glad to see PayPal, which is easilly in the top 5 of all phishing scam targets, take a stand at protecting their customers. Still, five dollars is a barrier to adoption, and if PayPal’s users were interested in protecting themselves, they would have educated themselves, for free, on how to identify a scam (just because a logo is in an email, doesn’t mean it’s real!). I would suggest PayPal figure out how much money it makes off a customer, and start giving these out for free to anyone who’s a big revenue generator.

Considering how much information we now put in our Google Accounts, from credit card numbers in Google Checkout, to our email, schedules, im conversations, search history, search cache (in desktop search), and many other pieces of information scammers might want their hands on, maybe Google would like to offer this sort of thing to their users? I’d probably buy a Google security keychain, if only for the geek points.
(via Neowin)

January 11th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | PayPal, eBay, General | 5 comments