Amazon have today launched Amazon Payments to enable sellers to accept payments from buyers using their Amazon log on credentials.
Amazon Flexible Payments actually launched in limited beta back in August 2007 and Amazon have rolled this in with their new product offerings which are Amazon Simple Pay and Checkout by Amazon.
Checkout by Amazon allows buyers to pay with their Amazon log on, but the seller has to check their Seller Central account to verify payment has been completed. It enables buyer to use Amazon’s patented one click checkout to complete their purchase and provides sellers with tools such as shipping calculators, tax rates and custom promotions for customers.
Amazon Simple Pay is a cut down payments system which redirects buyers to the Amazon Payments website to complete the transaction. There are simply cut and paste HTML code to enable sellers to get up and running quickly and easily but without the additional features of Checkout by Amazon.
Fees for both Simple pay and Checkout vary between 2.5% – 1.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, but payments under $10.00 incur a rate of 5% plus $0.05.
Flexible Payment Services which is now out of beta is designed for web developers for full integration using Amazon API calls.
It will be interesting to see how many merchants start offering Amazon Payments, there’s still time to add it to ecommerce sites before the Christmas selling season begins. At this point Amazon payments appears to be limited to the US. Although Amazon have been unable to comment at the time of writing, I’d expect it to roll out for the UK at some point in the future.
So will you be adding Amazon payments to your own website? Do you mind Amazon gaining access to your sales data which they undoubtedly would? One thing is certain – the more payment options that you can offer a buyer the less likely they are to abandon a shopping cart at checkout and more than 80 million potential customers already have Amazon account.
8 Responses
Why would I remind my own customer base about Amazon at checkout? Zero chance this makes it on to my site.
Hey Sue, I want that one! (joke.. joke….!) 😈
Not sure whatever it will make any positive impact on my business. If I do offer PayPal and direct credit card processing, why would people want to use Amazon?
O.k., they have an account with them but in my eyes is all too complicated ofr BUYERS. PayPal and CC are easy, but this one…
As a buyer I’d use an Amazon payment method over Paypal or direct cc.
Mainly because I know and trust Amazon and buy thousands of pounds of goods a month through them. I know their customer service is first rate and if there is a problem their customer service is far better than Paypal’s or my banks.
Good point but how many of people like You’re out there? Not a majority I think…
PayPal (as a payment method) is the World’s most popular. Now, I wonder how long it will take for Amazon to “position” themselves as a payment processor?
I would rather pay with Amazon or Google Checkout than PayPal, but prefer PayPal to credit card directly.
My main bugbear with PayPal is that if I have a balance in my account in the same currency I want to pay with I can’t choose not to use it – I have to withdraw it first. (Why do I want not to use it? It makes my business accounts much simpler to pay from my credit card directly).
The Amazon and Google systems are nice and simple – just a standard card payment with some added convenience and privacy. No messing around with account balances.
Buyers will associate the PayPal brand with eBay, which still has an unregulated car-boot sale feel for many buyers. Google and Amazon feel like more solid brands to trust. PayPal’s one advantage is that if you have bought on eBay you probably already have a PayPal account, and it’s more convenient to use it than sign up with Google – but that’s not a sticking point for Amazon!
Why do some of you prefer third party checkouts to paying directly with your Credit Card?
#7 I prefer a PayPal checkout because I invariably have money in PayPal and it’s just easier… who wants to type in credit card details, name, address etc when you can do email, password done?