Google has made it so you can set up an online store in just a few minutes. They have integrated Google Checkout with Google Docs (spreadsheets in particular) to allow creation of an online store. Google Checkout gives your customers a way to pay for goods or services, and you manage the inventory in a Google spreadsheet. You don’t have to do any tricky coding because there is a wizard that takes you through all the steps.

The first thing to do is sign up for Google Checkout. This is what you’ll use to process orders at your online store. Google Checkout (according to Google, anyway) can help attract leads, have higher conversion rates and protect yourself against fraudulent transactions. The first screen shot shows an example of some of the data you’ll enter to set up your Google Checkout account.

Next, list your products in a spreadsheet in Google Docs. This is where you manage your inventory. They have a template spreadsheet to use: just replace the example inventory with your own real inventory. Setting up the spreadsheet is covered in a step-by-step guide that takes you through all the steps.

Once you’ve done this, you will have a store gadget that you can embed anywhere you want: your blog, Google Sites, or your regular website. This process, too, has a step-by-step guide to help you. The second screen shot shows an example of what the embedded store gadget looks like.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 8:10 am and is filed under Online Marketing, e-commerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.