Ater investigating a bit more I found that BVC5 indeed does trasmit the shipping prices to Google Checkout. However, my store seems to be encountering an error in that process. In the Intergration Console of Google Checkout I see this error in the log:


We encountered an error trying to access your server at https://store.hawaiicoffeeco.com/googlenotify.aspx -- the error we got is: chunked stream ended unexpectedly.



If anyone has any insight into this issue it would be much appreciated.

If you use more than one shipping method -- Google Checkout simply doesn't work. They have a limitation on getting rates from all your methods and carriers in 3 seconds or less -- which is virtually impossible if you have more than one method or carrier -- and so it defaults to your backup chart that you set up -- which I found never to be anywhere near what it costs to ship. On top of that, if a customer gets a Shipping Estimate on your cart page, it won't be the same when they check out.

Google is working on a new method where they check the shipping rates from the carriers and methods you choose, but they will use a different algorithm for the rates, especially if you have discounts with the carrier, so once again it won't match what a customer sees prior to checking out. Only if you use flat rates for shipping (or free shipping) does Google really work. Unless they accept the ecommerce package (BV) to dertermine the rates before checkout and accept those rates, in my judgment it will never be a viable option.

I had three orders when I was testing it, two of them the shipping was way wrong -- in one case a customer in Ohio was assigned USPS International Priority Mail for shipping.

It doesn't seem like the BVC5 Google Checkout is really used by anyone. We want to use it but because of these shipping and tax issues it's senseless. And is the fault all with Google ... I suspect that BVC5 is contributing to the problem because it's not well integrated? Google Checkout itself does not consider BV to be integrated with them, but lists others that are including notable competitors....https://checkout.google.com/seller/integrate_getnew.html

The free transaction processing and $10 credit to GC buyers expires the end of this year ... has any BVC5 seller been able to make use of these incentives? I guess the answer is NO :confused:

Andy -- I wonder why you say to keep shipping simple by offering only 1 or 2 options, no carrier rates, etc. From a merchant's standpoint -- and operating from getting an end-customer's stsndpoint -- that would greatly hurt my business. Customers WANT more shipping options and they want fair shipping rates based on competitive rates. I would lose more business by dropping carrier rates and gaining any sort of incentive or savings from Google or anywhere else. When you operate a business that has more than a handful of items, items that run the gamut as far as size and weight and price, there is no other shipping model that ends up being fair -- you can't do it by dollar amount, you can't do it by product volume. Using carrier rates is the only way to go unless you are basically a one-product store. Even then, I as a customer always look for stores that have actual carrier rates -- I see other methods (including free shipping) as a means of ripping off customers.

Agreed with C. In today's new economy it really makes no sense to ignore Google --- which is what BVC5 response seems to be and FOR ALMOST A YEAR! The benefits that would accrue to sellers as well as BVC are more than mere savings on transaction fees and incentives to buyers... it's a huge e-marketing lift if you use AdWords and have international customers (e.g. JCB in Japan) for sellers like us.

All we get is googlenotify.aspx errors filling up our error logs .. I really don't think it is a problem with the Google Checkout callback timing out.. it has to be on the BVC side. Even at that (callback failure), it doesn't seem that the default shipping rates are being passed back correctly either. We get the price of the item as the shipping cost ($4.99 for the item, $4.99 for shipping = $9.98 total) being calculated by Google per our default. Where are the instructions for setting up GC in BVC5 anyway?

At this point for this year, we just want a BVC5 Google Checkout that works with custom shipping methods (not default) --- we are willing to compromise temporarily and can accept reduced shipping methods. Has anyone done this? Is there anyone that has a working example? Andy, if your shipping product solves this Google Checkout problem and you have a working example please state so --- I'll definitely be calling you!

I don't yet accept Google Checkout on my live site, so I can not write from "real" experience. However, I have setup Google Checkout in BVC5 using the sandbox (Google's test version of Checkout) with success. And I have completely dozens of test orders. When I first set it up there were many notification errors, but once I configured everything correctly, the errors stopped.


BV Software's documentation covers the Google Checkout configuration thoroughly. However,

<UL>
<LI>Your API callback URL must use SSL (BV's documentation shows http, but you must use https)
<LI>I don't think you need to check the digital signature option. I never have and I don't think the digital signature is verified.
<LI>Test your API callback URL by loading the page in a new browser session. You should see an error message about a missing root node because you are not passing in a valid notification, but you must not be prompted for a username and password, and the page must not be redirected--even when an error occurs.
* Your SSL certificate must be issued by a Certificate Authority accepted by Google Checkout.
</UL>
One of the most vexing issues when you use Google Checkout arises when you use custom shipping methods. Remember that BVC5 does not know the shipping address when control is handed over to Google (this is true for every vendor that implements Google Checkout). Custom shipping methods almost always depend on the shipping address in some way, which means that the default shipping costs that are sent are almost always very wrong.

After the customer enters or selects their shipping address, Google will "call" your server with the real shipping address and ask for the custom shipping method costs. Your server has less than 3 seconds to respond (Google's server will wait a total of 3 seconds, but that includes the time it takes for the message to travel from Google's server to yours and back again). If your server needs to contact a carrier to retrieve real-time rate quotes, then it will almost certainly fail to respond to Google within the alloted time. That means your customers will often see the default shipping costs (which were probably not very accurate).

BVC5 is not creating this problem. This problem is being faced by every ecommerce vendor that implements Google Checkout. Google is making changes to Checkout to help deal with this, but they are not very effective as of yet.

I think the most effective way to deal with this issue today is limiting the number of shipping options that you present in Google Checkout. If you want the most reliable Google Checkout experience possible, then I recommend you do not offer any shipping option that depends on real-time carrier quotes.

My shipping rate providers for BVC5 include a checkbox so you can decide whether to show them in Google Checkout or not. That means you can have one set of shipping options for BVC5 Checkout and a different set for Google Checkout.

Marcus, Justin, Nick etc,

I'd be interested in seeing a comment on my previous post or some guidance. OOB I get a straight error on the googlenotify.aspx page. I'm willing to let you guys root around to figure out what's going on for the benefit of everyone, but unless I'm mistaken it's pointing to an error in the code?

What page are you using for your GC Callback URL --- is it the googlenotify.aspx page? Question to BVC: What page are we to enter for the GC callback URL?

If so, if that page never renders without an error how can Google get ANY information on the callback? Question (rhetorical) to BVC: whose software generates the googlenotify.aspx? How can this be a Google issue? Someone please take proper responsibility.

Andy correct, but I think the point he or she is making is that we all get errors just trying to load the page so obviously google can't communicate with it. I've yet to visit a BVC5 site where it works www.sites.com/googlenotify.aspx via https or http.


EDIT: Off the record. When I submit this through support I now get a message telling me I have to pay for further support. I'm not asking you for help, I'm asking you to fix a critical flaw in your software. Come on guys, you have a lot of customers here demanding an answer. Does SP3 actually work with Google? If BV5 won't render the darn page how is that Googles fault?



The page won't render, so it's not going to be able to handle callbacks.



When I just went to https://www.oursites.com/googlenotify.aspx I instantly got:




[table id=ctl00_MainContent_gvEvents style="WIDTH: 100%; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 border=0]
[tr ][td vAlign=top align=left]11/26/2007 3:02:22 PM[/td][td vAlign=top align=left]System.Xml[/td][td vAlign=top align=left]Root element is missing.[ at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ThrowWithoutLineInfo(String res) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseDocumentContent() at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read() at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.Read() at GCheckout.Util.EncodeHelper.GetTopElement(String Xml) at googlenotify.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) ][/td][/tr][/table]

Andy we're not all idiots, it's configured correctly. It's been configured correctly from day 1. Any order not archived tosses errors in both Google Checkout and in BV. EVERY SINGLE user reports this for actual real orders.

It doesn't happen with other carts.

I may be drawing the wrong conclusion on whether or not the inability to browse is an error, but other carts aren't having a 100% success rate in generating errors which tells me it's in the code. I don't think there is a person here that has a live site running live transactions that is error free.

It's not like I'm alone, everyone aside of you on this post is asking for (or has demanded elsewhere) some type of fix. Customers are using google checkout, it's free to merchants and for 11 months most just gave up and stopped even trying to get it to work.

I'll ask again, does anyone have a live BVC5 install running live transactions without errors?


Google hasn't allowed http: entries for the api callback for as long as we've been using it by the way.



EDIT: And whatever the case may be, Google IS RETURNING 500 errors, the exact error states "runtime error"...XML get/go/feed whatever, the page isn't loading for Google either.

We encountered an error trying to access your server at https://www.promomanagers.com/googlenotify.aspx -- the error we got is: Send failed with code: 500. Response body was: &lt;html&gt; &lt;head&gt; &lt;title&gt;Runtime Error&lt;/title&gt; &lt;style&gt; body {font-family:"Verdana";font-weight:normal;font-size: .7em;color:black;} p {font-family:"