Video - Free and Easy eCommerce for Your Online Store with Google's Store Gadget
The Google Store Gadget creates an ecommerce store that's easy to setup and insert
into your website. It can be embedded in your own website or in a free Google Sites
website. This video takes you through the implementation of a Google Store Gadget.
Transcript:
There are five simple steps to create a Google Store Gadget.
1. Get a domain name.
2. Setup a Merchant Account.
3. Get a Google Sites website.
4. Setup Your Store Products.
5. Insert the Store into Your Website.
Step 1 - Get a Domain Name
Technically, you don't need your own domain name to use the Google Store
Gadget, but if you want any credibility out there, it makes sense to have a domain
name. You can get one at GoDaddy.com for $8.75.
Step 2 - Setup a Merchant Account
Set up your merchant ID at Google. Go to
Google Checkout
and sign-in with your Google email address and password.
It will ask you; Does your business have a Google Account for services like Adwards or
Gmail? Set the () Yes radio button. Would like to have a single account for all Google services?
Set the () Yes radio button. Then you'll need to enter your password again.
Then you'll be taken to a form "Tell us about your business" where you need to enter
details about your business including: address of business, contact person, and financial
information. Then set the check box next to "I agree to the Terms of Service", and click
on the [Complete sign up] button. Then you'll have your Google Merchant ID setup.
Step 3 - Get a Google Sites Website
Go to Google checkout store gadget
and click on the [Create Online Store Now] button. Again, it will ask you to sign into your
gmail account. Then it will take you to the Merchant Account setup page.
There are four steps to create the Google store checkout gadget.
Setup the account page
1. Under Setup the account type:, set the () Production account checkbox.
2. Under Give your Checkout account permission to access the store gadget, click on the [Grant access] button.
3. Under Select the currency associated with your merchant account, select [USD] (dollars).
Then click on the [Next] button. You'll go to the Choose Data Source page.
Choose Data Source page
You'll see an inventory sheet spread sheet where you need to fill in fields about
your products. Take out the sample entries and put in your product information:
SQU number; Name of product; Price, Description; Quantity; Picture, where you
enter a link to a picture, Options, where you put the Names of any options you have;
The actual values of the options; Whether it's digital content or not; Weight; Shipping.
You can enter from 1 to 50 different products. Then click on the [Next] button.
You'll go to the Preview / Configure page.
Preview / Configure page
It shows you picture of what your Google store looks like. It will ask what size
you want it to be ()Large ()Small ()Tiny, or you can set the width and height in pixels.
Click on the [Next] button. You'll go to the Embedded Gadget page.
Embedded Gadget page
On the Embedded Gadget page, under Select where you plan to embed this gadget,
in this example, click on the [Google Sites] tab, where under number 4, you can copy and
the URL which you will paste into your site.
If you were using your own Web site, you would click on the [Website (HTML)] tab,
where under number 1, you would copy the HTML snippet and paste that into your Web site.
Step 4 - Insert the Store into Your Website
Go back to the Google site that you created, click on the [Edit page] button. In the
main menu click on Insert, then in left pane menu select more gadgets.
In the Set up your gadget dialog box, select Add gaget by URL, then
paste in the URL from the Google store gadget. Click on the [Add] button.
Then on the next page of the Set up your gadget dialog box, select the size
and other options. Then click on the [OK] button. Then click on the [Save] button to
save your page.
Conclusion
Now you have your web site, you've got your products live on that web site, ready
to take payments over the Internet from anyone in the world using credit cards or Paypal
or other form of payment that's acceptable to Google.