Lead Optimize is mostly written for small businesses that generate sales leads online to sell offline.

I was looking around for the easiest online payment solutions for small businesses. Aside from custom (expensive) solutions, PayPal is the payment solution I have experience with but I thought I would look into Google Checkout. I have bought through both but have only created selling websites using PayPal.

Google vs. PayPal (long story short)

Basically, they are both great solutions. A year ago the winning factor in my mind was that Google did not calculate shipping and taxes while Google did but that seems to have changed. It looks like PayPal still makes it easier, though. Honestly, though, now I don’t see a whole lot of difference. Google has the most valuable brand but PayPal has the most valuable brand attached to online payments.

However, Google Checkout is cheaper per transaction and also has a few additional excellent incentives. Google Adwords customers get a $10 credit towards Checkout transactions for every $1 spent on Google Adwords and up to a 21% discount on FedEx shipping costs.

Comparisons and Reviews

This review from Cnet is an excellent comparison of the two services. They also provide an excellent comparison chart.

To save you some time, here is the Google Checkout demo and here is the Ebay demo.

Simple Thoughts wrote an excellent Google Checkout review this article from TechCrunch about Google Checkout’s impact on Paypal brings up some good ideas about the future of the two services and offers some excellent links for additional learning.

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