Google Checkout's Effect on Hits and Sales

Over the next few weeks, I'll be looking more deeply at how Google checkout effects sales. There has been a ton of speculation lately, and, frankly, I thought Google checkout was a complete flop. However, it seems that they are growing slowly but surely, especially after they used some Microsoft-like tactics to force checkout upon us.

Below I've pasted in an image of Google's relatively recent promotions of their checkout. You'll see that the Google OneBox shows "results available through Google Checkout" rather than the "see more products" message it used to have. You'll also see to the right that some Paid Search Ads have a really eye catching icon underneath them.





I'm willing to bet that these changes to Google will be driving a significant amount of additional hits to Google Checkout sellers. Hopefully in the coming weeks my experiments will prove it!