Google continues its seasonally aggressive Checkout campaign, offering discounts and special promotions in advance of Cyber Monday…
“Behind the pitched Cyber Monday battle of online retailers is the battle of the payment systems. Both Google Checkout and eBay’s PayPal unveiled generous promotions today to increase their share of holiday spending…”
If you are looking to earn some miles through online shopping this holiday season, the mileage malls are not your only option.
Global online search engine company Google has announced that its Google Checkout payment system is allowing buyers to benefit from exclusive discounts and free shipping and earn frequent flyer miles per dollar spent through Google Checkout, as they make their holiday season purchases.
The offer is available to U.S. residents who register prior to shopping between now and Dec. 31. Participating airline reward programs include Alaska Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Midwest Airlines, Northwest Airlines, US Airways, and United Airlines, and you can earn up to a total of 10,000 frequent flyer miles.
“The company rattled eBay’s cage last year by launching Checkout and succeeding in luring away PayPal users. Checkout remains one of the few Google products the company actively promotes.”
Last year, Google spent heavily on a promotion that offered users as much as $20 off every $50 they spent. Industry executives say Google’s system quickly accounted for more than 10 percent of transactions at sites that offered the deals, but its share fell sharply as soon as the discounts were withdrawn.
What is more, Google Checkout users will also be able to take advantage of a wide variety of holiday promotions from more than 100 different Google Checkout retailers.
“In addition to earning miles, select retailers are offering free shipping and discounts ranging from $10 to $50 off of your order.”
Over a hundred stores participate in Google Checkout including Toys R Us, Sharper Image, drugstore.com and beauty.com. Google Checkout is Google’s version of PayPal and users can use the service to make purchases online at participating Web stores.
The company also provides a Google Checkout Purchase History, allowing users to access information such as shipping status and store contact information, while iGoogle users can keep track of purchases from their iGoogle homepage.
“Google Checkout for Non-Profits enables users to donate to charitable organizations such as the Salvation Army, Red Cross, March of Dimes, One Laptop Per Child and the William J. Clinton Global Initiative quickly and securely.”
Unless you are a shopoholic or sans budget, that would not likely translate immediately into free plane tickets, but many airlines allow customers to fork over about 400 flier miles on smaller items like magazine subscriptions. Just be careful that you do not let your accumulated miles expire.
The promotions page also promises savings of up to $50 at participating stores like CompUSA, Buy.com and tigerdirect.com. PCSuperstore is offering $5 off orders over $30 while CompUSA will give you $10 off order over $100, according to Google.
However, Wal-Mart is also stepping up to support strong Black Friday sales, and offering specials and deals on its website www.walmart.com all week long. The retailer is hoping to snag a few shoppers who are still looking for the smart buys. All this week the website will offer over one-hundred fifty deals on items which is about three times as many as this time last year.
“Walmart.com will also promote one special “featured” item each day, like Monday’s Xbox 360 bundle, which includes Microsoft’s Xbox 360 premium video game console, an extra controller, three games and messenger bag for less than $400,” reports Reuters.
Speaking to the news service Wal-Mart executives said that Walmart.com is offering deals that cover a range of prices, from a Thomas the Tank Engine playhut for $10, which is almost fifty percent off, to a Samsung 40-inch LCD high- definition television for $1,198.
According to Wal-Mart, some of the popular items on Black Friday included Garmin Nuvi 650 portable global positioning system, Canon’s 7.1 megapixel PowerShot digital camera and photo printer bundle and the Power Wheels Ford F150 pickup truck from Mattel.
In addition to Google’s promotional offers, PayPal, even though has fewer merchants but its offer is more lucrative for shoppers in some ways, with 20 percent of purchases credited to the buyer’s PayPal account. And it has more top names including Barnes & Noble, Toys ‘R’ Us, Hewlett Packard and eBags. To prevent people from grabbing too many of these incentives, eBay is capping the rebate at $50 per PayPal account.
It is not clear that any of these promotions will get more than a handful of people to use either system at sites that take credit cards directly.
“If they can save a few bucks using Google Checkout they will use it, but they will revert back to tried and true methods,” said Peter Cobb, the senior vice president at eBags. “PayPal has deeper roots, with the eBay connection, and people are a little more comfortable with it.”
Without promotions, only 2 percent to 5 percent of eBags buyers use Google Checkout, and between 5 percent and 10 percent use PayPal, Mr. Cobb said.
“But at the end of the day, how much business is either system going to have if they do not pay people to be their customers?”
For a complete list of stores where you can use Google Checkout at:
http://www.google.com/checkout/m.html.
Holiday shoppers can learn more about how to take advantage of these promotions on the new Google Checkout holiday page: