14 DAY TRIAL // Google has decided to retire Google Wallet for digital goods, a service that has been around since 2012 and provided a way to purchase virtual items on the web, but also inside online games.
“When we first launched Google Wallet for digital goods, we wanted to make it simple for users and merchants to buy and sell online. The industry has matured a lot since then, providing a number of alternative payment solutions to choose from. As we continue to evolve and improve our merchant tools to meet new market challenges in the payments space, we are writing to let you know we will be retiring the Google Wallet for digital goods API on March 2, 2015,” Google announced.
This means that merchants will no longer be able to process payments via Google Wallet for digital goods following the March 2 deadline. They’ll also have to remove integration of the service so there won’t be bugs and errors. Those who don’t have their own payment processing system in place will need to transition to an alternate solution and remove calls to Google’s API before the same date.
Access to the Merchant Center will continue to be open and people will still be able to process refunds, get payouts and see various reports.
For those who are selling apps on the Google Play Store or processing in-app payments through Google Wallet, they’ll continue to be supported. They’ll still be able to access your Google Wallet Merchant Center as normal.
What happens now?
Google instructs developers to remove the integration code for Google Wallet for digital goods by removing the client-side integration code, the server-side code that generates the JWT and the server-side code that handles the postback.
If the integration isn’t be removed before March 2, 2015, buyers will get 404 errors upon checking out with Google Wallet for digital goods.
Recurring subscription payments will also come to a halt next spring. Buyers will no longer be charged for their subscriptions following the announced date, so a new recurring billing or subscriptions solution needs to be located to continue to accept payments from users.
Unlike on other occasions, when Google has retired one tool or another, the company isn’t advising people towards choosing a certain payment processor or another, but rather to research the alternative payment solutions and evaluate buyers’ preferences on payment types, support buyers countries, merchant fees and so on.
