If you want to implement the Notification API or if you want to perform Merchant Calculations for tax and shipping, Google Checkout requires a valid SSL certificate installed on your server. Until now, we've been accepting SSL certificates issued by a limited number of SSL Certificate Authorities (CA). However, we've added 50 additional root CAs to our list, so you can easily find a suitable SSL certificate for your callback handler. Here's a list of all SSL root CAs accepted by Google Checkout.
On a related note, if you're having trouble receiving notifications or performing merchant calculations even though you have a valid SSL certificate, take a look at this troubleshooting guide.
Accepting 50 additional SSL root CAs
Wednesday, July 11, 2007 8:21 AM
Introducing Digital Delivery
Monday, July 2, 2007 11:43 AM
Starting today, Google Checkout will begin providing additional support for digital goods such as software and music. Users have always been able to buy and sell digital goods with Google Checkout but we want to be able to offer an improved user experience tailored specifically to digital goods. Now merchants will have option of tagging an item as digital within the shopping cart and specifying details about how it should be delivered. You'll be able inform a buyer that their digital purchase will be delivered via email, or you can provide a set of instructions along with a URL and license key.
Here’s an XML snippet showing how you can specify digital goods within the shopping cart:
<item>
...
<digital-content>
<description>
Please visit <a href="http://yoursite.com">our
website</a>, for instructions on downloading your
software.
</description>
<url>http://yoursite.com</url>
<key>1456-1514-3657-2198</key>
</digital-content>
</item>
Here’s a screenshot of how that digital content will be shown to the buyer:
We’ll be continuously making improvements to this feature so stay tuned. If you’d like to learn more, please take a look at the API documentation for Google Checkout Digital Delivery. Permalink | Links to this post |
Interview Series: Evgeniy Tarassov about the Google Checkout API Python Library
Friday, June 29, 2007 1:53 PM
Next in our series of developer interviews is Evgeniy Tarassov, a Russian developer based in France that I met at Google Developer Day 2007 Paris in Paris.
Evgenyi works for a small company called TT-Solutions. For one of his contracting jobs he had to integrate Google Checkout in a Django application, so he wrote gchecky, a Python open source library for the Google Checkout API.
Evgeniy talks about the gchecky project, a Google Checkout API library in Python, what he likes about the API, the Google Checkout API Documentation, and what we could improve, a polling API for Notifications, Bruce Eckel is asking for a polling API too, testing tools (they're on their way, see Mendoza testing tool for the Google Checkout API), and launching Google Checkout in Russia.
The XML parsing and generation in Gchecky is quite compact through the clever use of Python metaclasses.
Thanks for the Python library and the interview Evgeniy, I feel fortunate to have met you in Paris.
Permalink | Links to this post |Specifying international shipping & taxes with the HTML API
1:33 PM
Are you using the HTML API and interested in specifying shipping & taxes for locations worldwide? Our newest tutorial shows you how to translate elements from the XML API into HTML parameters so that you can specify shipping and taxes for any country where Google Checkout is available to buyers. This may be of particular interest if you're a merchant in the UK interested in using the HTML API to specify VAT and ship goods throughout Europe.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments on this article, please feel free to post them in the Google Checkout Developers Forum.
Interview Series: Robin Kohli from E-Junkie
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 4:13 PM
Who would be best to initiate our series of developer interviews than Robin Kohli from E-Junkie? Robin is a star in the Google Checkout developer community: he's the top non-Google poster in the developer Forum, and his "fat free" shopping cart application is a great way to get started selling with Google Checkout in a matter of minutes.
Here's an example of what E-Junkie cart looks like from a user perspective, with a few items from the Google Store (this cart uses the Google Checkout sandbox so no real orders will be processed).
Google Checkout API at TheServerSide Java Symposium in Barcelona
4:03 PM
Wednesday June 27th we will present
the Google Checkout API at TheServerSide Java Symposium in Barcelona. I will go over the API, the Google Checkout Java SDK, and the Mendoza testing server, and Thomas Steiner will present his work on code generation for REST APIs. Join us if you're in the area.
Bookmarks for Checkout integration
Friday, June 15, 2007 4:15 PM
As the developer knowledge base and developer community for Google Checkout continue to grow, we're seeing a number of helpful resources and materials scattered across various places, which can make it difficult for you to find what you need. To help keep things organized, we've started to collect bookmarks for links to resources and materials of benefit to merchants in the process of integrating with Google Checkout. You can find it here.
We hope you find it useful, and if you know of any resources that may benefit other merchants, you're more than welcome to add any links to the page.
