How To Set Up A Google Store In Minutes
Last week, Google released yet another gadget that may win them friends with small business owners. It’s called the Google Checkout store gadget and it essentially allows you to use Google Checkout and Google Docs to to easily create your own online store in a matter of minutes. What makes the gadget especially interesting is that because it’s tied to a Google Docs spreadsheet, small business owners can keep product inventory without having to use another third-party program like Quickbooks. Something many of us can probably appreciate.
To install the gadget on your site or blog, Google outlines three simple steps.
1. Sign up for a Google Checkout seller account.
Checkout will process your orders and help you attract new leads, convert more sales, and enjoy advanced fraud protection.2. List the products you want to sell in a Google Docs spreadsheet.
You’ll just need to create a copy of our template spreadsheet, and then replace the sample inventory with your own.3. Place the Google Checkout store gadget on your website.
You can embed your online store anywhere you’d like — on Google Sites, Blogger, or your personal website.
And that’s it. Three steps and you literally have your own online store set up and ready to go.
This is really a great new gadget from Google, especially if you’re one of the many aspiring merchants or SMB owners who were intimidated by the thought of creating your own e-commerce store. Now, you don’t have to be. Thanks to Google, you don’t have to worry about hosting, dealing with the technical elements of setting it up, matching inventory, receiving payments, etc. They’re taking care of that for you and helping to make the process as painless as they can.
What I really like is how much this lowers the bar to entry for merchants to start up. There are so many people out there who have a blog and perhaps wouldn’t have thought it “realistic’ to attach a store to it. Now they can. Even if you don’t have a huge lot of inventory, but just want to sell a handful of homemade goods. A process like this makes it easy enough for you to do that.
I don’t think you can call the new Google gadget a PayPal killer any time soon, but if you’re looking to get an online store up and running quickly, this may be a good way for you to go. The gadget goes what Google does best — simplifies Web activities so that even us regular people can take advantage of them.
Do practice some caution, though. The gadget is still in beta so we don’t fully know what Google plans to do with it. You don’t want to launch a huge online store, only to have Google decide to take it down or make adjustments to it without telling you. Still, I think it’s worth experimenting with, especially if you’re simply looking for a quick way to get started in the world of e-commerce.
What do you think? Will you use the gadget to attach an online store to your Web site or blog?
Lisa, thanks for informing us about this brilliant tool from Google. An eCommerce store that can be ready in minutes!
What if one does not have a website or blog to attach the gadget to? Will the products setup in the spreadsheet appear in a Google Products search?
Well this is clever. I can see how this could be useful for a blogging crafter who maybe wants to sell a handful of items at a time. I’m not sure how it would work well for a full store of a couple dozen products though. But for an occasional seller, this beats all the time, cost and effort of building a full on e-commerce site.
An online store with virtually no programming knowledge or online payments expertise? Google is great at helping non-techies get into the internet game. Thanks for the post Lisa.
I’ve already set one up to see how it works. I put it on my blog (http://mysticconvergence.blogger.com) to highlight a few products on my main store. Seems to work well, though I haven’t seen a sale from it yet.
One nice thing about it is the ease of updating/changing products. Once it’s installed on one or more sites, all you have to do is edit the Google Doc file and it appears on all the sites you have that store on. Its a lot easier to set up and maintain than Paypals attempt at doing a widget, which I’ve also tried.
I haven’t fully implemented it yet, but will be adding more “mini stores” to help cross-promote my products on my other stores and sites.
Well I put the URL in in case someone wanted to see what it looked like and fouled it up
The correct url is http://mysticconvergence.blogger.com
Oh for crying out loud – one more try (wish you could edit your comments). http://mysticconvergence.blogspot.com/
Thank you for sharing this, I didn’t know about the new gadget, I’ll be checking it out. While Google may not be about to replace eBay just yet it is offering an alternative to ebay. Being able to attach a shopping cart to your blog is a major e-commerce development. I think it will effect a lot of the ecommerce world. Web developers for example will have to start reducing their prices to compete. There is a shoppoing cart plugin for wordpress which is ideal for people selling niche items. Like you say, it’s a way for the small player to get into ecommerce.
I can see how this could be useful for a blogging crafter who maybe wants to sell a handful of items at a ttime.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful Google innovation! I never imagined how a complex arena such as an online store can be set up in no time! Keep those great posts coming!
I have heard of this kind of tool before, but seems it not easy to use, and i will try again, thank you so much.
It would be nice to see Google Auctions back up again, this store gadget tool might be the signal of Google’s stepping stone towards the e-commerce industry and eBay might as well meet a new neighbour pretty soon. It was about time the mom and pop sellers were rescued.
I have to check out this new gadget from Google. I hope it is open for international business owners. How do you get paid? Could you use PayPal?
I’m really glad for Lori’s real world efforts and report on the Google tool. Thanks for sharing Lori. I’ll be eager to hear if it works for you and generates sales!
This is too cool. Definitely going to gather more information on this. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
[...] is becoming easier. You can add a PayPal or Google Checkout button to your Web site. Heck, you can create a Google store in minutes. The barrier to entry is way [...]
[...] is becoming easier. You can add a PayPal or Google Checkout button to your Web site. Heck, you can create a Google store in minutes. The barrier to entry is way [...]
[...] is becoming easier. You can add a PayPal or Google Checkout button to your Web site. Heck, you can create a Google store in minutes. The barrier to entry is way [...]
[...] How To Set Up A Google Store In Minutes | Small Business Trends smallbiztrends.com/2009/08/how-to-set-up-a-google-store-in-minutes.html – view page – cached Last week, Google released yet another gadget that may win them friends with small business owners. It’s called the Google Checkout store gadget and it — From the page [...]
[...] How To Set Up a Google Store in Minutes (SmallBizTrends) – Difficulty: Low, especially if you’ve setup your website in Google Apps/Sites or Blogger! NOTE: The Google Checkout plugin is still in the “Labs”, meaning it *could* eventually be removed or could be down for maintenance at random times. [...]
is it goole checkout badgets only available in UK and USA??I am from China, and just want to sigh up, but found it is unavailable.
And we have our online fashion jewellry store website separately, and just found this tophic and wanted to also set an e-store on google. buy couldnot, is it any body who can help me??
Thank you for the step by step, it is really simple and so far seems to work seamlessly with Sharepoint. Really nice!