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Google Checkout - US Take-Up and UK Launch
May 04, 2007
Google Checkout recently launched in the UK and I wanted to share some statistics about the take up so far in the US where Google Checkout has been available for just less than a year and in the UK where it has just launched.
The following chart shows the monthly market share of US Internet visits to Google Checkout since its launch in June 2006. The site ranked 11th among Business & Finance - IT & Internet websites last month.
Whilst Google employees tend to play down the "PayPal killer" label, the comparison helps to put things in perspective. PayPal received a 67x larger share of US Internet visits last week compared with Google Checkout.
The spike in December coincides with incentives offered to consumers to use Google Checkout, not just the busy retail season. Consumers were offered $10 to $30 off purchases by Google in the US launch and are being offered £10 off purchases of £30 or more in the UK.
The generous incentives clearly worked in the US to bring customers to Google Checkout. After the incentives stopped, visits dropped off. But, so too did Christmas shopping. To isolate the seasonal effect, we can look at how much of retailers' own traffic goes to Google Checkout. Looking at downstream US visits from the Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds category, we see the exact pattern as we saw above with visits. This indicates that after incentives stopped, consumers were less inclined to opt for Google Checkout.
The retailers that accounted for the largest share of upstream US visits to Google Checkout in April were Buy.com, Toys 'R Us - USA, Dick's Sporting Goods, AmericaRX and FYE.
UK Launch
In the UK, Google Checkout only just launched last month and the site ranked 60th among Business & Finance - IT & Internet sites last week. The following shows the weekly share of UK visits to Google Checkout. To offer some perspective, PayPal attracted a 53x larger share of UK visits last week than Google Checkout.
The retailers that accounted for the largest share of UK visits to Google Checkout last week were Empire Direct eBuyer, Cartridge People and Dust Bag.
A few retailers have asked me about the likely impact of Google Checkout in the UK. I was at the Pindar retail event earlier this week and there were some very smart questions asked of Paul Frantz of Google about the new service. (You can view presentations from the event on Slide Share). Retailers asked about take-up in the US, the impact on conversions, the impact on lifetime value of the customer and costs. There is clearly a great deal of concern about the search engine that powers 79% of UK Internet searches knowing everything from the cost per click and the transaction value right down to the customer's identify.
After the consumer incentives stop, I'll revisit this post to see if UK take-up continues to increase. If the pattern seen in the US is any indication, interest will drop off after the incentives stop at which point growth will be more modest.
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Links to weblogs that reference this entry:
- Google Checkout - US Take-Up and UK Launch (Research News Jan-Jun 2007)
Google Checkout recently launched in the UK and I wanted to share some statistics about the take up so far in the US where Google Checkout has been available for just less than a year and in the UK where it has just launched. The following chart shows ... [Read More] - SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 4, 2007 (Search Engine Land: News About Search Engines & Search Marketing)
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web:... [Read More]
Comments
Can you somehow factor out ebay from the paypal traffic? To compare apples to apples, I think you have to eliminate ebay from the paypal equation, and see how Checkout fares vs. Paypal in non-affiliated traffic.
Clearly, Paypal is still dominated by ebay users.
Posted by J. | May 7, 2007 02:23 PM
Hi Heather,
Firstly thanks thanks for all the great insights.....extremely informative. I saw a really good 'Siteseeing' piece by you in the Technology Guardian last week about Club Penguin....It linked to here, I can't find it and its not on the Guardian site....Do you have any idea where where I can find it electronically?
Thanks
Rich
Posted by Rich | May 9, 2007 03:23 AM
Rich, Thanks for your comment and for reading the blog. I fell a bit behind on my blog posts in the past two weeks! I did post the Club Penguin data on Hitwise To Go, where we put small snapshots of data.
Thanks again, Heather
Posted by Heather Hopkins | May 16, 2007 10:08 PM
J, You are right, PayPal's traffic is dominated by eBay. Last week, 65% of US visits to PayPal came from eBay and 55.2% of UK visits.
Even discounting the eBay traffic, PayPal remains much larger. But this is not a big surprise, as PayPal has been around much longer!
Posted by Heather Hopkins | May 16, 2007 10:17 PM
I think the interesting analysis would be what % of consumers on the basket page hit GGC as opposed to the standard checkout.
My feeling is that retailers will "come under pressure" to use it as it will effect clickthru rates if they don't offer it & I believe the incentives to retailerson fees and adword costs will encourage them. For smaller outfits, it will clearly increase trustedness.
I suspect there might also be degree of consumer resistance to the "allseeing online monopoly" (cf. recent Ask advertising). But I recognise that the convenience value of having online purchases routed & consolidated through a single wallet are good.
Time will tell!
Posted by roger | May 4, 2007 01:00 AM