During the first six months of 2007, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)'s PayPal online payment transaction and money transfer service continued to beat up on new entrant Google Checkout. It's not for a lack of trying on Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s part -- it has made Google Checkout very visible at many high-traffic online retailers as well as plastered the service all over Google search results. Still, it has not made that much headway against PayPal.

In most respects, I chalk this one up to "first-mover" advantage. PayPal was there years before Google Checkout was even conceived, as it became the most popular way to pay for things on eBay, the world's most popular online auction place and a mini-economy all its own.

eBay even published the results of a Google Checkout survey recently that uncovered an interesting fact: less than one of five users of Google's Checkout online payment service was satisfied with the service. Ouch, Google. What is going on? PayPal's happiness figure was double that amount, which is still only 2 out of 5 satisfied customers, maximum. Weird. Google Checkout is still so new that specific metrics are not known, but my guess is that it has a tiny market share compared to PayPal.

Can PayPal continue to provide eBay with a nice income stream even in the face of its core auction revenue possibly slowing down? Most likely, yes. Even the mighty Google may not be able to catch up with PayPal since it has its huge lead and is firmly planted in the minds of millions of online merchants and customers. Though it's used to being a market leader, Google may have to settle for second place in the online transactions space.

Has Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) "Google Checkout" online payment and transaction system gained on eBay's established PayPal online transaction service in recent months? Google Checkout has only been available for less than a year, and really it's only been in full-scale use (not in beta) since last summer. While Google Checkout has increased its visibility -- a large partnership with online retailer buy.com comes to mind -- is it making inroads to take marketshare from leader PayPal, a division of eBay?

According to a new report from J.P. Morgan, Google Checkout still has a long way to go before catching up -- and competing with -- eBay's PayPal. While not that much time has gone by from the launch of Google Checkout, a recent customer satisfaction survey hints at problems with customer satisfaction that could hold Google Checkout in check -- with little growth over the rapid 6% marketshare it has now.

An article over at arstechnica.com states that Google Checkout may be failing to impress its early-adopting audience. That could be a crucial mistake for any web service trying to grow from infancy to established competitor. Shudders follow: only 18.8% of Google Checkout users reported having a "good" or "very good" experience with the service while 81.2% indicated a fair to poor experience.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) has begun to offer eBay, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:EBAY) PayPal electronic-payment service as an option for customers of its Home & Office store at www.hp.com. This is another example of, what I conside to be, the growing influence of electronic payment systems in this day and age of so much commerce being conducted via the Internet with no physical documents being used.

In fact, I consider eBay's acquisition of PayPal in 2002 to be -- by far -- the most rousing success for the online auction company. Google, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) recently launched Google Checkout service will have a hard time competing against such an entrenched competitor like PayPal, although Google's deep pockets may make Google Checkout more and more of a competitor as time goes on. With PayPal's rather-hefty fees, it needs a competitor badly. As always, having competition will reduce prices and force better innovation.

But now, PayPal is largely out in front of the electronic payments game, and this endorsement by HP proves that in a big way. I've always thought that most online major merchants could offer credit card acceptance along with checking account acceptance. That right there would comprise most of the payment methods consumers look for -- and there would be no middleman like PayPal to take a cut. But, consumers want as easy access as possible when "checking out," and with PayPal being so popular already, it's here to stay.