It appears that I have been able to successfully implement the Google Wallet Digital Goods API onto my site.
Whilst testing on the sandbox environment and with regards to notifications from Google to the buyer, i'm observing:
Cancellations - They receive an email with every cancelled transaction (perfect).
Purchases - Not received or infrequent. (Why so?)
Should I expect anything different in production?
Related
We are using Stripe subscriptions to handle payment for a SaaS application we are building
Currently, our development team has implemented the following logic:
User enters card details into Stripe elements UI as the final step of signup to our app.
If the credit card is deemed valid by Stripe Elements, the signup process to our app completes successfully.
A stripe customer & subscription is created.
Our server processes the webhook from stripe to confirm if the initial payment succeeds/fails
The problem we have is that the customers card isn't being charged until after the signup process to our app is complete. In some cases this results in a poor user experience, where the user is told by our signup process that they have signed up successfully, then they receive a 'payment failed' email from our software if the stripe charge doesn't succeed.
What is the best way to handle this signup flow? Since we are relying on the stripe webhook to tell us if the charge has succeeded - a suggestion has been made that we could monitor for the webhook response (eg. every 1 second, in a loop) and confirm payment has succeeded before completing the user signup for our app. The flow would then become:
User enters card details into Stripe elements UI as the final step of signup to our app.
If the credit card is deemed valid by Stripe Elements, we create the stripe customer / subscription
Monitor (in a loop) for a response from the Stripe webhook to confirm if payment was successful
The signup process to our app completes successfully (if charge is successful), or fails if the charge is unsuccessful.
This also seems like a bandaid solution - what is the best way to handle our issue?
I have noticed there is an option to use 'pre-authorisation' of a card, but I'd prefer not to go down this road if it leads to extra items on a customers bank statement.
This seems like something that would be very common - we would greatly appreciate any advice
Thanks
The most straightforward solution seems to be that your integration isn't waiting for the payment to complete.
With Subscription, you can wait synchronously on your backend for a status: active on your backend, before returning a response to your frontend. You don't even need to poll for the webhook response, cause your backend creates a Customer, creates a Subscription, and returns that response to your frontend, to show an error or success.
(waiting for webhooks is good but when your integration is manually starting the Subscription, you don't necessarily need webhooks)
From the frontend perspective, your user sees a loading spinner, until your backend is able to say "payment successful, you are signed up!"
Again I am frustrated by the lack of documentation involved in developing using Google Wallet as a payment gateway and I may switch to another service.
My new question is as follows:
Can I programmatically change the payment card utilized by a Google Wallet for digital goods subscription?
If a card utilized in a subscription expires, that is on the user, However, If I do not provide a means of changing the payment card elegantly, that is on me!
Does anyone know how this can be done? Or would I have to create a whole new subscription to produce this effect? This should be a basic feature of any payment gateway so I am assuming that I am missing something.
It should also be noted that creating a new subscription may be problematic without an ability to cancel the previous subscription via the API. Provided that both the old and new cards are still valid, it would attempt to process the payments for both subscriptions!
On a side note, why does it seem that the Google Wallet API is missing so many key features? (annual subscriptions, subscription cancellation, the issue mentioned above, etc...?)
Thanks again everyone!
If Google can't successfully charge, they'll send you a failure postback which you can use to evaluate what to do with the subscription.
It would be best if you don't equate Wallet to a "payment gateway" (or credit card processing service/gateway) because it isn't.
At the end of the day, Wallet basically gives you some "access" to a Wallet User's data. It's up to the Wallet users' to add/remove whatever payment instruments they have in their Google Wallet.
in Wallet for Digital, Google also handles the transaction - the processing part, so you're freed of any PCI compliance, and related payment infrastructure to get stuff going.
Instant Buy, Google will send you a "virtual card" for you to process the transaction using your own/existing credit card processor/gateway. In this case, you do have to be PCI compliant and have existing infrastructure.
In both cases, you don't have access to the actual Wallet users' payment data. Google locks that stuff down.
Hth....
I am growing frustrated with the lack of features and poor documentation of the Google Wallet for digital goods subscription API.
My question is the following:
If Google wallet sends a postback to my URL, and I do not acknowledge the payment (send status 200), does the payment get refunded or not appear on the card statement in the first place?
It seems rather strange that there is no way to programmatically cancel subscriptions. A work around would be to manage subscriptions on my end and only accept the postback payment if their subscription is valid. This would of course be frustrating to a user if they canceled a subscription, yet they still see a charge to their card and then a refund. I would like to avoid that.
Thanks in advance again everyone.
I'm not a Googler so this is subject to being crucified :)
To get an official response, it would be best to contact Google directly - you should see a "HELP -> Contact Us" in your Wallet Merchant Center.
Important: If you specify a postback URL, your server must respond promptly and correctly to the HTTP POST messages that Google sends for each transaction. Otherwise, the transaction will be canceled.
REF: Official documentation on handling postbacks
This somehow/probably relates to the old question in credit card processing of the difference between an AUTHorization and an CHARGE (aka "capture").
An AUTH for x amount would need to be sent for processing. Otherwise, how would Google send you a positive result for the transaction (aka Google would send you a postback after such successful "Auth" transaction for x amount - re: does account have enough funds to cover x)?
So there would be a "pending AUTH" for x value on card holders' account, subject to "capture" (finalizing, turning that AUTH into a CHARGE) at some later time (perhaps after you successfully acknowledge the postback).
What Google does (e.g. "Void" or "never capture") to that pending AUTH if you don't acknowledge (aka "...transaction will be cancelled"), or whether or not the above scenario is actually what occurs in Wallet for Digital Goods, can only be answered by Google. The above is only a personal (mine and mine alone) insight to standard credit card processing...
Hth....
After 8 hours research I found that Google Wallet sends notification about subscription cancellation and doesn't send notification for monthly charges. Ok, I can live without this.
But customer's credit card can expire... What happens if Google can't get money from customer's credit card? Will Wallet cancel subscription or will it send notification to callback URL?
Does anyone have answer for this question?
I do not see information about this case anywhere.
One more issue is that I can't cancel subscription in my merchant center. Is this a feature or Google forgot to do this?
If you're referring to Wallet for Digital Goods:
If Google can't obtain payment (or when users cancel), they'll send you a failure postback
Canceling subscriptions in Merchant Center
Hth....
I am new to integrate Google Wallet and there are some confusion and questions related to that given below:
Is it possible to add multiple items for Google wallet?
How to handle discount by API?
What's the parameter in JWT response on postback URL for success and failure transaction?
Is refund functionality available for a transaction by API call?
Anyone have idea about this. Thanks in advance.
Can you clarify which specific API (Instant Buy or Wallet for Digital)?
Is it possible to add multiple items...
Digital - no, you can however "bundle", see this post for clarification.
Instant Buy - it's just a "layer" on top of your (pre) existing purchase/ordering processes and handles (just) the payment data of a Google Wallet user. The "order details" is something you control. See sample of data you send.
Discounts by API
By API - no. You can pass whatever (pre-calculated) value in both APIs.
Success vs. Failure Postback
Digital - Google will only send HTTP Post to your server URL on successful transaction. See #5: "Google sends an HTTP POST message to the postback URL whenever a purchase completes..."
Instant Buy - not relevant. You are processing the transaction, unlike in Digital where Google is. Instant Buy in a nutshell provides your web site, secure access to a Google Wallet user's data. You need to have your own merchant account/processor, be PCI compliant, etc. That said, you will have the success or failure info that you actually have to send to Google - they need to know if you have successfully processed or not (yup, it's the other way around).
Refund by API
By API - Unless a Googler says otherwise, AFAIK, not at this time, for both APIs.
On that note, for Instant Buy, it's actually unclear to me how to "inform Google" when performing a credit or refund. Its still a "private API" (not GA) so I actually haven't seen its "guts". It's understood that since the merchant uses their own processor that a credit/refund is the same procedure, but letting Google "know" about it (days/weeks after the fact) is something I personally have no actual info on..sorry...I can assume some "button" in merchant center for Instant Buy, but that's just a guess....
Hth....
W.r.t InstantBuy Refunds:
The Refund happens on the virtual one time card that is returned by the Google API. The refund on the card can be done by using any backend payment processor. Once the refund is made to the card, it hits the user's backing card.