Google sign-in for shoppers
Give shoppers a one-tap way into their account using the Google account already on their phone — and set it up in the order that makes it work first time.
Your app's Account tab asks for an email and a password. Google sign-in adds a second way in: one tap, nothing to type, no password to forget. It runs on the same free Firebase project you set up for push notifications, so if push already works you are most of the way there. Everything on this page is Android only — there is a note about Apple at the end, and it is not good news.
What a shopper sees#
The shopper opens the Account tab, taps Sign in with Google, picks an account in the sheet Android draws over your app, and lands back in the app signed in. No confirmation screen, no email to click, no password anywhere.
If they close Google's sheet instead of choosing an account, nothing happens at all — the button goes back to normal and the screen stays exactly as it was. That silence is deliberate; a canceled sign-in is not an error.
The reason this matters is the checkout. A shopper who is signed in already has their name, email and saved addresses, so checkout is a review rather than a form. A shopper who is not signed in either types all of it again or gives up.
What it does to your customer list#
Signing in with Google does not create a second, parallel kind of customer. Everything lands in WooCommerce as an ordinary customer record, and your store decides which one in this order:
- They have used Google here before — they get the same account back.
- They already buy from you and the Google address matches the email on their WooCommerce account — Google is linked onto that existing account. No duplicate customer, and every past order is still there.
- Neither — a new WooCommerce customer is created, with a long random password that neither of you ever sees or needs.
One refusal is worth knowing about. If Google reports that the address has not been verified, sign-in stops with "The email on this account is not verified". That is on purpose: without it, someone could claim an address they do not own and walk into another shopper's order history.
Set it up in this order#
Settle your package name before anything else
Open Settings › General and check Package name. Everything you are about to register with Google is tied to this exact name, and it is permanent from your first release onwards — the panel says so: "Editable until your first build, then locked." If you have never taken a release, set it now and press Save package name. If it is already locked, that is fine; just copy it as-is. Full detail is in App name, icon and package name.
Do the Firebase setup — and do not skip the fingerprint
Open Settings › Notifications and work through the setup card, exactly as in Push notifications. Step 4 is the one that concerns you here. It shows two things to copy into Firebase: your package name, and a fingerprint that goes in Firebase's "Debug signing certificate SHA-1" box. The dashboard says it plainly — that box "enables Sign in with Google in your app". Copy the value from the dashboard with the Copy button rather than typing it.
Skip the fingerprint and everything still looks fine: the file downloads, push works, and nothing tells you Google sign-in is off.
Check the one line that confirms it
Once both files are uploaded, the setup card collapses into two rows. The first is labeled Firebase configuration, and the small grey line under it should read: google-services.json · project nordvik-app · Google Sign-In ready · applies from your next Android build.
If the words Google Sign-In ready are missing, the fingerprint did not make it. The row tells you how to fix it: add the fingerprint in Firebase, download google-services.json again, and press Replace on that same row. Do not go any further until you see those three words.
Take a new Android release
Open Settings › Releases and press Release Android app (APK). A box asks "Take a new release?" — confirm with Release app. The build takes about ten minutes and runs in the background, so you can close the tab.
This step is not optional and cannot be replaced by a Live Publish. The Google details are baked into the app file itself, so an app built before you uploaded google-services.json has no Google button in it, no matter what you publish afterwards. See Take a release.
Publish Live, after the release has finished
Go back to the Studio tab and press Publish Live. This is the step everyone misses. Your store only learns which app it should trust when a Live Publish lands — until then it is checking sign-ins against the wrong app and rejecting all of them. See Publish live.
Upload the new app file to Google Play
Download the finished file from Settings › Releases and upload it to Google Play yourself. Uruvak does not submit it for you. Shoppers get the new version after Google's review, usually one to two days, and only then can anyone actually use the button. Get your app onto Google Play walks through it.
When it doesn't work#
Almost every failure here is one of three things: an app built too early, a store that has not been published to since, or a fingerprint that was never registered. The message tells you which.
| What you see on the phone | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| No Google button at all, just Email and Password | The installed app was built before google-services.json was uploaded, or the fingerprint was missing when it was | Check for Google Sign-In ready in Settings › Notifications, then take a new release and upload it to Google Play |
| "Sign-in failed" — Could not verify the sign-in token | The app and your store disagree about which app to trust. Nearly always: no Live Publish since the release | Press Publish Live and try again |
| "Sign-in failed" — Google sign-in is not configured on this store | Your store has nothing published to check sign-ins against | Press Publish Live |
| "Sign-in failed" — Google sign-in isn't configured in this build. | Same cause as the missing button, caught a step later | New release, then Google Play |
| "Sign-in failed" — The email on this account is not verified | Google has not verified that address | The shopper signs in with email and password instead. Nothing to change on your side |
| "Sign-in failed" — WooCommerce is not active | WooCommerce is switched off or broken on your store | Reactivate WooCommerce, then try again. See When the connection breaks |
| A Google prompt about updating Google Play services | The phone's own Google software is out of date | The shopper updates it; there is nothing to fix in your app |
Two less obvious ones:
- Your store's clock. Sign-ins carry a timestamp, and a server clock more than a few minutes out gets every one of them rejected as Could not verify the sign-in token. If everything above checks out, ask your host to look at the server time.
- You cannot test this on a preview. The Google button only exists inside a real installed app. Install the release on an Android phone — or get it from Google Play — and test there.
If you rename your package after uploading google-services.json, the file no longer matches and the dashboard warns you: "This file doesn't cover the current package name." Fix it by re-registering the new package name in Firebase and uploading the fresh file, or both push and Google sign-in quietly stop working at the next release.
Apple sign-in#
Once shoppers are signing in, Analytics shows you whether it is changing anything: watch the drop between Started checkout and Placed an order in the funnel before and after your release.