In the Works: A Google Mobile Payment Service?
“You'll be able to walk in a store and do commerce,” says Google's Eric Schmidt. “You'd bump for everything and eventually replace credit cards” — Google (GOOG) is considering building a payment and advertising service that would let users buy milk …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google had already framed commerce as part of its broader product-organizing ambition and was preparing to test GBuy, an online-payment option in 2006. The reported in-store service would extend that earlier checkout effort into physical retail while tying it to advertising.
The plan remains unconfirmed: Business Week reports that Google is considering the service, rather than announcing a launch. Its significance is the proposed combination of merchant promotion and payment at the point of sale.
First-order effects
- Google would move its commerce effort from online checkout toward in-store purchasing, offering merchants a proposed payment-and-advertising service.
- Consumers and merchants would have a potential alternative to credit-card checkout only if Google builds the reported service and merchants adopt it.
Second-order effects
- Credit-card providers would face a prospective new checkout rival whose pitch combines payment acceptance with advertising, rather than payment alone.
- Merchants considering Google advertising would gain a reason to evaluate whether promotion and in-store transactions should be managed through the same provider.
Third-order effects
- If this model gains adoption, retail advertising and payment acceptance may increasingly converge around platforms that connect merchant promotion to the moment of purchase.
- Google’s reported direction extends its earlier commerce-focused product ambition from organizing goods online toward participating in the transaction itself.
The trend: Mobile commerce is developing toward platforms that seek to combine consumer discovery, merchant advertising, and checkout in a single service.