E-Commerce: Google Checkout Store Gadget

Remember those great offers from web design and development agencies? E-commerce website from $999! Well I believe their time is gone, and once more, Google is taking the lead. Google Checkout has been introduced quite some time ago, but here’s what there’ up to these days – Google Checkout Store Gadget. And this looks really fabulous! You can create your own online store in just a few minutes. Too bad though that the only countries currently supported in Google Checkout are the United States and United Kingdom. Let’s hope those guys add a few more, including Russia of course ;)

There’s a sandbox account you can create with the Store Gadget, but you can’t skip the linking to your Checkout account step (hence the Country limitation issue). I believe that the widget functions pretty much like their FriendConnect widgets, which is great, although quite glitchy sometimes ;) Not in terms of processing data of course, but in terms of layout. I couldn’t get a properly-functioning FriendConnect widget to stay in a hidden div and show upon request..

Oh and guess what! There’s no WordPress plugin for this gadget yet, so here’s your chance ;) Although there are other e-commerce plugins with Google Checkout support, but who cares if you have a Store Gadget straight from Google?