Need To Remove Google Checkout Shipping Step

[makecupcakewrappers]

I'm selling access to my website. There is nothing to ship. I've seen in several places here on e-junkie, that if I "disable all shipping options" on my product, then Google will skip this step. How exactly do I do this?



Here is my setup:



Product Configuration (first page):



-Nothing Checked.





However, I am still prompted by Google to "ship" the item.



Is there any way to really disable shipping when selling digital goods?

[E-junkie_Guru]

Just make sure you leave the Shipping/Buyer's Address setting disabled in the product's settings in Seller Admin.

[makecupcakewrappers]

That doesn't work. If you read my original comment, you'll see that I have nothing checked. Google checkout still requires me to log in and "ship" the product before the transaction is processed.

[E-junkie_Ninja]

I checked your E-junkie account and nothing in the way your account is setup would cause Google to require this. You should check your Google Checkout account settings to see if there is anything on their end that is causing this.

[makecupcakewrappers]

Hi E-Junkie Crew,



This is still happening. I've read some of the google help pages and one of them seemed to indicate this was a known problem. They said Google Checkout was designed for tangible goods. However, with the advent of the android marketplace, it seems Google has marked this behavior as a bug in the last couple of months, because, obviously Android apps aren't tangible.



Is there any way you can follow up on it? I'm just one little guy, up against Google, and you, well, do this for a living. Surely other users are having problems selling digital goods through google checkout and having to manually confirm "shipping."

[E-junkie_Monster]

We're very sorry for your inconvenience, but unfortunately there is nothing that we can do about problems that Google is having.



Our system only considers your products to be tangible if you have marked the "Shipping/Buyer's Address" box, if you are not doing that then we are not sending any indication to Google that your products need to be shipped.



Beyond that, we've not heard of any widespread problems with Google behaving this way, but it is an issue that you have to take up with them. We can't troubleshoot their errors or answer on their behalf about problems that are occurring on their end.



Also bear in mind that you have other options for your payment processor beyond Google, if you aren't happy with their service or support you can easily switch to one of our other supported processors:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/help.payment.processors.htm

[makecupcakewrappers]

I just wanted to provide an update on this mysterious behavior:



I think it was related to the probationary period with Google Checkout, because it's not happening any more, and I haven't changed any settings.

[excelhero]

Thanks for the update, MakeCupcakeWrappers!



I just added Google Checkout after using e-junkie and PayPal for two years and ran into exactly the same issue.



My setup is correct here and on GC. I too only offer access to my website (no tangibles), and Google is requiring me to "ship" the goods and I was reluctant to do so, since there is nothing to ship.



So that my customer can gain entry to my site and so that the transaction can make its way over here to e-junkie I am going to go ahead and mark it as shipped in the GC admin.



May I ask how long your probationary period lasted?



I was going crazy trying to figure out what the problem was and I found no hint on either site until I read your last comment. So once again, thank you for that.



E-Junkie: While you certainly cannot do anything about this strange undocumented behavior (the probation) on Google's side, you absolutely can and should document this on your side. If one of your customers is selling intangibles and chooses to use Google Checkout, the transactions will not complete and make their way back to your servers until transactions are marked as shipped on Google's side. But apparently this only happens for the probationary period.



It would have saved me several hours of frustration if your documentation page for GC mentioned this.



Thanks.

[E-junkie_Guru]

The only probation period with Google Checkout that we're aware of only has to do with payouts of checkout payments you receive; payouts happen 14 days after the payment during the first 60 days of your GC service, then Google reviews your account activity to adjust your payout schedule accordingly.



However, I did find this item in the Google Checkout documentation:

http://support.google.com/checkout/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=25397 ...

Intangible and digital goods and services:



If you sell intangible goods and services, please take care to mark completed orders as 'Shipped', as this action in your Google Checkout account automatically triggers a confirmation email to your buyer and completes the order



However, if you are selling digital content or services, you do not need to mark it as shipped, as digital orders should be delivered immediately after the purchase is successful. Digital orders will automatically be marked as shipped when they're charged.

ExcelHero, it appears none of your product settings in Seller Admin use digital product features (Single File Download, Package files..., Redirection, or Send Stored/Generated Codes), nor do they have Shipping/Buyer's Address enabled, so GC is treating them as "Intangible goods/services" -- i.e., neither shippable nor digitally-delivered. Offhand I'm not sure if this technicality is new, but it's how they're doing things now, so I will update our documentation accordingly.



You may wish to enable Redirection in each of your products' settings and paste your registration URL (or other suitable landing page URL) as their Redirection URL on the next screen, so GC would regard these as Digital products. I also notice you have the "Send Transaction Data to a URL" setting enabled for each of your products but nothing in their "Payment Variable Information URL" field, so you should also disable the "Send Transaction Data..." setting as well.