Pay with Google service arrives

Thursday, November 2, 2017 - 08:57 by Graham Miller

Although shopping online can be a fairly painless process for experienced consumers, the biggest obstacles to satisfaction generally arise at the checkout. Now tech giant Google is hoping to combat them with its own payment service for Android smartphone owners, according to Tech Radar.

Known as Pay with Google, this solution is designed to cut out all of the annoying necessities involved with navigating an e-commerce checkout. Rather than having to enter personal information again and again for each different site, users will simply link their payment card info to their Google account and let it do all the leg work for them.

In the short term, only a small number of retailers are accepting Pay with Google as a means of completing the checkout process, but a host of big names are soon going to come onboard as well. This includes the likes of Deliveroo and Just Eat, so there is a clear focus on making home delivery more convenient.

Another limitation of the service at launch will be the fact that a lot of the features which were promised when it was announced earlier this year will be absent. So for those hoping to send money to friends or integrate their account with customer loyalty schemes offered by retailers will be disappointed.

However, the fact that Google is entering the payments market in the first place is interesting in its own right, as Android is the dominant smartphone platform and mobile devices are now used for browsing the web and carrying out safe shopping online more than traditional PCs. This could give it the edge and make it an important contender, taking on incumbents like PayPal and also disrupting things for existing payment card companies, all while improving the experience for consumers.