Ok, as one of the excited ones guessing that Google checkout was going to be big for MC, I find myself two months later, still not implementing the checkout. Simple reason: No real-time shipping.

From the Google developers site:

Level 2 offers more shipping options.
Specifying Tax Information

Specifying Shipping Information

When you post a new cart, you can specify one or more shipping methods for the buyer to choose from. Google displays the shipping choices for the buyer on the Place Order page. You can specify the following types of shipping:

* flat-rate shipping: the shipping cost does not depend on the ship-to address.
* pickup shipping: no carrier and no ship-to address are specified.
* merchant-calculated: Google asks you to calculate the rate.
. For merchant-calculated, Google calls you to calculate the shipping cost.

It looks like MC simply needs to go to level 2 with this? I have to ask why this isn't being done-

1. Is it that there is some cost involved, and MC does not want to incur it?
2. Are the MC developers simply not capable of doing it? It really can't take very long, can it?

I would like to know, as a longtime client, why my shopping cart choice cannot implement this. I haven't heard a solid reason as of yet. Please inform.

Sorry to disappoint you Run, but I believe is allready Level 2 with Google. Not saying that they shouldn't have real time shipping working, but that they allready consider themselves in a Level 2 integration.

So, if that's the case, then what is the holdup? I looked at the API and I don't know anything about MC's backend. I do think it could be somewhat complicated, but they would then be the FIRST shopping cart to integrate real-time with google checkout, I believe.

Please see this thread or the excerpt below:

"I've stated this in an earlier thread so I apologize for being redundant...we can incorporate real-time shipping into our integration with Google but we did not do so with our initial launch because I wanted to see adoption rate and gauge overall benefit to our clients. If we allocate resources to this feature in the integration, we take resources away from 4.x enhancements. Before I made the decision to go that direction I needed to know (a) when will Google add a real-time shipping on their end and (b) is this the most beneficial feature to the majority of our clients? We should have both answers within the next week."

***

Initially, we were told by Google that they would offer Real-time shipping options by the Holiday Season but new information suggests otherwise. Google will need to handle this answer within their own forums or FAQs as we are not at liberty to answer concretely on their behalf.

We are currently, unless driven otherwise by you, our customers, under the impression that other features and bug fixes are of more value to you than offering real-time shipping within this integration. Because we must decide between real-time shipping integration and features such as a new sitemap, wish lists, etc., we place a lower priority on enhancing the Google Checkout integration. A more realistic option (given time and resources) is to allow merchants to activate custom shipping ONLY for Google Checkout. This is being explored.

We welcome your feedback.

Real Time Shipping in Google Checkout is probably the most important thing for me right now.
We are having lots of problems/confusion with our Shipping Rates right now because we have switched to Custom instead of Real Time Shipping.
Please finish this integration with Google Checkout on Level 2 right away.

Thought that the sitemap would be finished by now according to the last time I saw the sitemap.xml idea get shot down in another thread. No Sitemap.xml auto generation since it would take to much resources to develop, but a sitemap.asp was going to be implemented in a couple of weeks.

Do not use real time shipping so we wouldn't be looking for resources to be spent in this area. We spend way to much time having to generate a sitemap any help there would be great, a wish list would be great as well.

"We are currently, unless driven otherwise by you, our customers, under the impression that other features and bug fixes are of more value to you than offering real-time shipping within this integration."

Certainly true, Skip, but......

The positive vibe we were given 9 months ago when you were bought by NS was that many would be hired, and all sorts of things would happen. This isn't the case. I mean, how much time can realtime integration with G really take? Can't you offer your programmers a little overtime to get these things done? Look how fast you fixed the last release mess when the chips were down- it was super fast. Skip, as much as I want to see new features, etc, I can't understand why you can't be on par with your competitors. It's as simple as that.

I've had the same issue with googlecheckout. When I first found this limitation i was told by monstertech support that it was a feature that Google would have to roll out on their own and that it was out of the hands of the folks at commerce, that there was no timeframe for when this was to be done. It's interesting to see that it may be more of a sided issue.

As far as our business goes, we were very excited about the incorporation of the googlecheckout feature, and in fact we had 10 orders the first day that used the service. we have a very large percentage of our budget going to online ad campaigns and any way we can recoup that money is welcomed.

as it stands though running a custom table for shipping just for Google checkout confuses the majority of our customers, so i have been forced to remove the option until an update is issued.

dzc
gymsupply.com