This is a huge deal and will, of course, spread to other services.

I suggest a careful read with an Atty if you plan to integrate this. Part of the process allows Google the opportunity to gather your customer information (optional) and provide information about their order. I snipped bits and pieces to try and keep this post small in size, but its a pretty big info grab in my opinion.

Unfortunately, Google has proven itself to be a data hungry marketing company and I can only see this as benefiting them, not the store owners. Just another way to track consumers online.

[All Your Data are Belong to Us]

[support.google.com...]

Google Trusted Stores are required to:....

...Merchants will provide Google with anonymous order confirmation information via JavaScript placed on your site. You must be able to pass an estimated ship date, as well as other data, on the order confirmation page for each order from your site...

(Bold is mine)

The the "Other Data" they want is:

[support.google.com...]

Order Confirmation Module... After completing a purchase with a Google Trusted Store, users will be offered the chance to opt their order in to free purchase protection from Google. A customer can choose to ‘opt-in’ ...

... If a customer opts in, the email address provided by the customer in connection with the transaction is sent to Google. Then, Google will send the customer an email with the details of the order, the merchant's contact details, and a link to their Google Trusted Stores customer account.

... When a customer chooses not to opt-in for purchase protection, by clicking "No thanks" or the "X," the order confirmation module will disappear and the order will not be protected under the program.

I will be watching this to see how many webmasters actually add it to their sites.

It'd be nice if they could provide more details of what all is required - all you can do is just step through the application. I give their announcement a D-.

This badge is only awarded to online stores that deliver a great overall experience

...and competitors will quickly learn to game this system and be sure you get as many poor marks as possible. If I trusted Google, I'd consider this a good service, however...they have eroded my trust over the past two years.

I will be watching this to see how many webmasters actually add it to their sites.

My opinion why wait it will be on more sites than you care to count.

Looks like the server is cooked because all I see is loading. Must be a bigger turnout than expected.

You have to upload 2 more data feeds.

Coincidental since their announcement about paying for product feeds?

Marshall

One of my clients has already asked me about whether they should implement. I told em I could handle the technical part, but the decision on whether or not to hand this data over to Google is above my pay grade.

It *will* be a strong trust signal, both with customers and with Google, no doubt about. But I am uneasy.

It looks like something that most merchants are just going to "have to do" if they want traffic and sales from Google.

For those smaller merchants who typically do business via paypal, this means that there is going to be a much larger gap now between the larger merchants and the "small guy".

This is bad just like all they do now. They want to be a partner in your business now. It's free for now and guess what you will get charged in future probably based on size of your business as they will know the revenue you do, products you sell and your customers.

The bigger merchants will dominate this also as they have the systems to integrate this easier.

Wouldn't ...touch... it... with... a...ten...foot...pole..

Wouldn't ...touch... it... with... a...ten...foot...pole..

Same here...

The words, "Google" and "Trust" can no longer coexist in my book...

google and trust? oh my...

coming soon, enron hands out "good business" badges to websites.

Well it is obviously just another data mining exercise for their benefit, of course they know this and they also know we cower in fear of their wrath.

This is the only way Google will ever be able to build their database of trusted customers.

Wouldn't ...touch... it... with... a...ten...foot...pole..

As people said.

I have zero trust in Google.

Wouldn't trust them to have a peak at my spreadsheet, let alone have a go at my data and my customers.


Between us and Google, Google doesn't get a trust badge anymore. Not that they care, or ever did in the last 3-5 years.. Hopefully if enough small businesses tell them "enough is enough" , it'll resonate.

I wonder how long it will take for Google to start moving in on Amazon.com once it gets all that free data...

Ahhh...the gotcha for small businesses is setting up the shipment and cancellation tracking feed. For my small store all of that is done by hand and emailed to the customer. Sometimes we have to dropship from a manufacturer and they never(rarely) send us a tracking number. For cancellations I have to send them all that data daily?

I'll have to think about this one a bit. That seems like an awful lot of data to send someone, especially the G. They will figure out a way to use that against me or to charge me for something.

Wouldn't ...touch... it... with... a...ten...foot...pole..

Actually, I would probably take a different approach, and start a new "division" or company that sells the same products but is set up only to be a Google Trusted store. Would be a different site altogether.

Actually, I would probably take a different approach, and start a new "division" or company that sells the same products but is set up only to be a Google Trusted store. Would be a different site altogether.

And you don't think that G has the means and the incentive to tie the two together ?

To make keeping G "in the dark" about who owned what work, you'd have to use offshore "blind" shell company registration , multiple servers, multiple bank accounts, multiple IPs to log into your different sites etc etc ..

That is a lot of expense and daily / weekly running around to avoid what can be avoided merely by not going nearer than the 10 ft pole length..:)

If you didn't ..couple of years down the line maximum before your non "trusted" site gets a severe drop off in traffic from G..and your trusted one gets told it has to give even more info to G , possibly be hosted on G approved servers ..and will be in a pay to be listed ( Oh yeah ..I forgot they just did that last bit ) shopping area of the serps..with additional CPC only access to your store front ..

And G will tell you how you did , what was your traffic, and send you the difference between your ad spend, hosting charges, listing charges and your sales..

G waves just enough "free services" at the beginning of each phase, in front of webmasters for many of them to take the "free" and then merrily or fearfully weave it into their own collars, and forge their own shackles and chains, which then pass the control straight back to "slave/serf master in Mountain View"..

Leosghost, high-five! Couldn't possibly say better myself.

Wlauzon: I wonder how long it will take for Google to start moving in on Amazon.com once it gets all that free data...

that's a pipe dream. they don't know a first thing about ecommerce, warehousing, and most importantly CUSTOMER TRUST. Amazon will eat their lunch.

They can, however, move deeper into Shopping comparison, or what Leosghost said.

I suspect there are deals, agreements, whatever you'd call them between G and Amazon to stay out of each others "back yards"..

I also suspect that if G ever did take a pointy stick to Amazon, or start treading on their toes, that they would get smacked senseless by the awoken beast..

Amazon can make deals in a heartbeat with Apple or MS or Facebook ( or whatever is the "social flavor of the moment" ) that could really hurt anyone left out of them..and Amazon are not afraid to get into hardware or software..and know a thing or two about search and really humongous server networks and datacentres..

Then again Larry can be pretty "jump in without thinking", so Google might just do some such silliness at some point..

Wonder if Larry wants to see Jeff's books etc before he lets Amazon have a trusted badge ? :), wonder what the reply would be ? ;)) if all merchants are going to be treated equally when "Google trust badges" are being dispensed that is ..:)

I no longer trust Dear Leader Larry when it comes to press releases about all the improvements that Google makes for our benefit. What is even more worrying was that this trend was evident last year with that famous "high quality website" post that appeared after the Panda mess. It looked like what Google considered a high quality site was a cross between wikipedia and a shopping cart with a trusted shopping seal. Google's promotion of Wikipedia eventually led to its plundering for "enhanced" search results. Now we see the "trust" seal coming into play. If you've ever wondered what the 'G' in Borg stood for, I guess you've got the answer.

Regards...jmcc

I wonder how long it will take for Google to start moving in on Amazon.com

Just one more step. Telling merchants that they should (have to) offer G Checkout for their trusted site (again more money for G) of course under the guise of more security/assurance for the merchant vs. the customer as G keeps an eye on the payment and they have the same as outside merchants selling on Amazon.

All that's left for the merchants is to pay G a number of fees and do the hard work, inventory, chargebacks, shipping, customer complaints etc. while G sits back, relaxes and cashes in.

How long will this new 'trusted'' badge last once the general public finds out how much information about the transaction is forwarded to google?

If Google wasn't opening their own store (which they are) then perhaps this is all innocent enough. If you're in the online store business and it's dealing I dunno, things that Google will be selling like tablets, good luck. You just have to compete with Amazon and soon Google. Even if I get a badge or whatever this is, people are going to choose my store over Google? Interesting. I'm going to go with odds on this one.

MrSavage, some of us already compete with Amazon. Amazon is a history of taking on best selling products that silly merchants send to amazon's warehouse for FBA. They basically first collect your data, then use their size to get better deals from your manufacturers. We get emails from Amazon all the time saying "these products will be good choice for FBA" (translation - we want more selling data on these).

This sounds like Google's first step to me.

I guess I'm skeptical of how a badge would improve the outlook on online businesses who so happen to sell the same products as Amazon and soon to be Google. I don't mean to sidetrack the discussion. If you look at tablets, who's to say that consumers will even get to your listing when they see the link under the search bar on the homepage? I believe that was the case with the Nexus phone. I saw the ad under the homepage. I guess a badge system will be able to counter Amazon and Google nicely if done properly with a nice marketing campaign to go along with the badge.