Google Checkout launched in the UK last month, and Heather Hopkins has some figures on the take-up for the service so far, as well as figures for the US version, which launched some months previously.
US take-up of Google Checkout:
- Google Checkout ranked 11th in market share of US internet visits in the Business and Finance category last month.
- By comparison, its big rival Paypal received 67 times Google Checkout’s market share.
- Incentives offered to users, as well as Christmas, meant that traffic to the site spiked in December, but this has now dropped off.
UK figures:
- Google Checkout ranked 60th among Business & Finance – IT & Internet sites last week.
- PayPal’s share of UK internet visits in all categories was 53 times higher last week.
At the moment, Google Checkout is offering similar incentives to those it offered in the US – customers are given £10 off for purchase of £30 or more, so it remains to be seen whether their market share drops off after this offer ends.
Google Checkout will clearly have a job competing with PayPal, which has a dominant 25% share of the market. Traffic from eBay is responsible for much of PayPal’s business, and eBay users are not allowed to use Google’s payments service.
