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Is Google’s Express Checkout an Amazon Killer?
Google’s Express Checkout has arrived and it’s shaking things up in the world of eCommerce.
I was on awaytravel.com and I hit the Add to Cart button. Then I saw this menu:
When I clicked the EXPRESS CHECKOUT button, this is the pre-populated popup that appeared:
Amazing.
Why this is a big deal and a threat to Amazon
Let’s look at the facts:
— 55% of people in the U.S. now start their online shopping trips on Amazon.com. That’s 25% increase from the same survey last year, when 44% of online shoppers said they turned to Amazon first. (source: ReCode)
— Amazon prime is used by over 50% of US households.
One of the big benefits of Amazon is that they make checkout a breeze (because they have our shipping billing info). Google’s Express Checkout has taken that advantage off the table
Shopify in the mix
When I wrote this article last year, Express Checkout was the only contender to Amazon. Now Shopify has it’s own innovation: It’s called Shop Pay and looks like this:
Once a buyer uses Shop Pay for the first time, their information is saved for future purchases—they can then securely speed through checkout with a simple tap.
Not only does this reduce the hassle of creating a new account each time, but it also is more secure because I trust Shopify, the company, more than I trust a small mom-and-pop site that’s running on Shopify. I don’t want to have my details stored with the mom-and-pop site.
Impressive Shop Pay stat
Shop Pay have an average checkout-to-order rate of 1.72x times higher than those going through regular checkouts.
A little about us
Thank you for reading this article. We are Frictionless Commerce and over the last 11 years, we’ve thought about just one thing: how do we get online shoppers to convert? We’re fascinated by buyer psychology. Once we’ve understood how your site visitor thinks we use our 9 point copywriting process to convince and convert them.
If you’re on LinkedIn much you can should definitely connect with me. I’m posting ecommerce conversion ideas every day, multiple times a day.
Other buyer psychology-based eCommerce conversion ideas
If you liked this article about Google’s Express Checkout you’ll love our other ideas:
“Is My Marketing Working?” A Unique Product Page Design Idea
Product Reviews & Buyer Psychology
Comments 2
I love new options for checkout, so upon seeing this I immediately looked into what Google is offering. From what I can tell, they are using Google Pay here (also known as Google Wallet, formerly Google Checkout), and so Google will require the merchant to have their own payment processor. The advantage that Amazon still holds is that a merchant can sign up and use Amazon Pay without having to have their own merchant account and payment gateway.
That’s not a very high bar for any but the smallest sellers, but still, Amazon’s checkout offering will still hold the edge with the little guys. Best to add them both, as I intend to do!
ReplyRishi Rawat
Glad you liked the post.
Ted: The advantage that Amazon still holds is that a merchant can sign up and use Amazon Pay without having to have their own merchant account and payment gateway.
Rishi: Ah, good point.
Ted: Best to add them both, as I intend to do!
ReplyRishi: I’ll follow up next month to see if you got any Google Express Checkout orders.