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Sep 2013

As our sellers using Google Checkout are no doubt already aware, Google has announced that Google Checkout will be retired effective November 20th, 2013:

http://support.google.com/checkout/sell/answer/3080449



Until that date, buyers can continue using their Google Wallet accounts to pay sellers using Google Checkout, but Google has already closed Google Checkout to new seller enrollments by now. While it had initially seemed that a new payment service called Google Wallet for Digital Goods would be simply a scaling-back of Google Checkout but otherwise continuing to use the same or slightly modified APIs, it now appears the only thing they have in common is the name "Google" -- the technical end is completely, utterly different.



As such, migrating from Checkout to Wallet for both us and our clients would be much the same scenario as migrating from Checkout to any other payment processor, so there's really little inherent advantage in prioritizing support for a Google-branded new payment option that only supports digital goods when other, more full-featured options are feasible with the same or even less work.



In light of that, E-junkie Development will first be expanding our 2CheckOut integration to support full cart checkouts via our standard E-junkie Add to Cart/View Cart button codes, thanks to recent API improvements at 2CO's end that make this possible (heretofore, we could only support Buy Now buttons with 2CO). Unlike Google Checkout and Wallet, 2CO supports merchants in most countries worldwide (including many not served by PayPal) with support for multiple languages and pricing currencies:

https://www.2checkout.com/global-payments



Another advantage to expanded support for 2CO is that we should be able to do this with our current Admin, so once we've got the backend integration squared away, we won't need to wait for our new Admin to go live (still on schedule to launch before the end of this year) before sellers can start migrating to 2CO as a payment option with standard E-junkie Cart buttons (or Buy Now buttons, if you prefer).



In fact, to get prepared in advance for this upgrade, you could just go ahead and register for 2CO now and set up your 2CO Seller ID, Secret Word, Approved URL and Return Method (see link below for details). This will have no effect until we have the backend cart support in place, at which point a 2CO checkout button should appear in your E-junkie Cart without any further action from you. If you'd like to start using Buy Now buttons to start selling with 2CO right away without waiting for full cart support, you can still use our old 2CO integration outlined here (this also explains where to set up your Secret Word, Approved URL, and Return Method as mentioned above):

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/selling-with-2checkout.old.htm



Note that once we upgrade our 2CO integration, it should no longer be necessary to perform Steps D. and F. of our old 2CO integration procedure, nor will they cause any conflict later if you decide to use those steps now to start using our Buy Now buttons for 2CO right away.



After we finish upgrading our 2CO integration, Development will then work on integrating Google Wallet for Digital Goods and TaxCloud -- the latter being a free sales tax rate-lookup service that many of you will appreciate if you are subject to sales tax rates that vary according to the buyer's location, not to mention the proposed "Marketplace Fairness Act" (H.R.684 / S.336) already passed by the US Senate and currently in subcommittee in the House.

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    Sep '13
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1 month later

Just a status update:



Development has completed and tested the upgrade to our 2CO integration behind the scenes, so the rest of our staff will be testing that this week to recommend any final tweaks before we take it live for everyone by Nov. 20th! :^D

Do I understand correctly that when this is implemented the google checkout logo in the cart will be replaced with the 2CO logo?



Further I don't need to create all my products without 2CO system?

Yes, that is all essentially correct. :^)



We will remove the GC checkout button/logo (for merchants using it) from our cart by Nov. 20th. For merchants who enable 2CO, a 2CO checkout button will take its place.



2CO now allows us to pass product details to their checkout, so there will no longer be any need to set up any products at 2CO's end, nor to enter any product settings at our end (such as a 2CO Product ID) matching anything at 2CO's end.



It appears there will be one more change to our 2CO integration procedure vs. what we currently document and what I described in the announcement above. In your 2CO Account tab > Site Management screen, you will need to enter this new Approved URL:

https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/2cocart.php



The other settings on that screen are irrelevant to E-junkie, so you can just disregard or customize them as you wish.

Just an update as we iron out the final details of our 2CO upgrade before we take it live.



I have already updated our 2CO integration help page with the procedure to set up our upgraded 2CO support:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/selling-with-2checkout.htm



You can go ahead and perform that setup now if you haven't already, but bear in mind it won't actually work until we "flip the switch" to replace our old 2CO backend integration with the new version next week.



If you've already set up our 2CO Buy Now buttons using our old 2CO integration and prefer to keep selling with those right up until we switch over, keep your old 2CO settings as they are for now, and then simply replace your old Approved URL with the new URL once we make the switch. You will NOT need to replace your 2CO Buy Now buttons if you want to continue using them, but of course we'd recommend using our Cart buttons if you want to take advantage of all our cart-based features that don't work with Buy Nows:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/help.buttons.buy-now.htm



In related news, we will be supporting 2CO as a card-based checkout alternative to Payment Gateways such as Authorize.Net or PayPal Payments Advanced/Pro or Payflow Pro, so this will show up as a "Pay with Credit Card" checkout button in your cart, rather than a 2CO-branded checkout button. Unlike PayPal or Google Checkout, 2CO does not maintain buyer accounts, so as far as buyers are concerned, they're just paying with a credit card, rather than "paying with 2Checkout". Indeed, buyers would have no particular reason to recognize the 2CO brand or prefer paying through 2CO vs. any other card-based payment method, so there's no compelling reason for sellers to offer buyers a 2CO checkout option concurrently alongside any of the traditional Payment Gateway services listed above.



However, unlike actual Payment Gateways, 2CO is still technically a Payment Processor that acts as a middleman, where the buyer actually pays 2CO and then 2CO pays you (minus their transaction fee), so 2CO basically gives you a "best of both worlds" solution where buyers can simply pay with a credit card, yet you don't have to deal with the cost, restrictions, and other hassles of setting up a traditional card Merchant Account and Payment Gateway to authorize card charges directly into that account.

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we are planning to take our 2CO upgrade live mid-day tomorrow (Tuesday the 19th), so we can keep a sharp eye out for any unanticipated anomalies and respond to any questions or issues you may have. This 2CO upgrade is not mutually-exclusive with Google Checkout, so we won't need to disable your Google Checkout buttons until the last possible moment on Wednesday the 20th.



Once we make the upgrade live, there will be one last, simple thing you need to do to actually enable the new 2CO checkout option for your cart, presuming you have already completed our new 2CO integration procedure (as previously posted above):

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/selling-with-2checkout.htm



Note this will NOT work until the upgrade is live. I will post an announcement here when the upgrade is live, then you can perform the following steps to enable it for your cart:



1) Log into your E-junkie Seller Admin;

2) Click Edit Profile;

3) Verify that your 2Checkout Seller ID (Account #) and Secret Word match what's in your 2CO account (or you can just delete these if you no longer wish to use 2CO with E-junkie);

4) Click Submit.



That's all there is to it, and thanks to everyone for your patience and cooperation while we completed this upgrade.

Development has now rolled out our 2CO upgrade for all E-junkie subscribers!



Please see this separate announcement post for further details and instructions:

https://www.e-junkie.com/bb/topic/6656



Please do not hesitate to email our Support team if you notice anything amiss with your orders paid through 2CO or receive any reports of trouble from your buyers attempting to pay you with a credit card via 2CO:

https://www.e-junkie.com/ej/contact.php

Just posting a final update on this topic to confirm that we have disabled Google Checkout for all our seller accounts as of midnight last night, and our 2Checkout upgrade appears to be running quite smoothly with no issues whatsoever.



If you were sitting on the fence waiting to see how our 2CO upgrade rollout went, by this point we can report that all is well, and we couldn't have wished for a smoother transition.



In particular, I'd like to publicly thank Ellen, our Rocket Surgeon (aka sysadmin/dev/ops engineer), for her hard work and job well done in implementing this upgrade so well and even meeting the Nov. 20th deadline early.

1 year later

Have developers made any progress in providing support for TaxCloud's api's? This thread was posted two years ago and I haven't seen any updated notices about the status of this proposed feature upgrade.

Have not seen any response to my earlier post about TaxCloud support. I wonder if all that is required is to enter TaxCloud's api code in E-junkie?

Development is still planning to build support for TaxCloud at some point, though we don't have an estimate for when that project could get completed. We'd be using their API, but doing that is not as simple as dropping in some ready-made code and having it just work automagically.



In this context, an API is just a written description of how data can be transmitted to/from that service (what data fields, how they're named, arranged in what format, transmitted by what method, etc.), but actually transmitting the data according to that spec and then doing anything with it would need to be programmed from scratch at our end to integrate with our existing cart and order-processing systems, which is not a simple task by any means.