I mentioned a while ago that Google can’t sell anything but search, Google Checkout is no exception.

Google Checkout is a payment processing service that competes with services like Paypal on processing payments for shops, I’ve yet to see any shop use it that I’ve purchased from, but I’ve made heaps of Paypal purchases. Google are trying so hard to compete with this product that are offering free credit card processing and no monthly setup or gateway fees at all for sellers, not only that, Googles payment guarantee protects 98% of orders, if there’s a chargeback, you don’t have to pay anything, you still keep that payment.

It’s a pretty good deal.

But it would seem they have a new competitor, one with lots of money that could eat into that market share they are trying to steal from Paypal and others – Amazon is expanding their reach into the payment processing arena with the launch of an expansion on their current payment web services they offer, it’s not launched yet, but there’s talk of a launch of the new service as early as next week.

Keep an eye on the Amazon web services page for updates.