This is the question I was asked last week. “Why does Amazon disbursement take 14 days?” It’s a fair question, and not one I’d thought much about. I don’t really have an answer.
The seller in question, which whom I shared several convivial pints, sells on eBay too and noted that PayPal funds are available immediately and can be withdrawn to your bank account pretty much instantly. We both agreed that it was one of few occasions where eBay/PayPal are ahead of Amazon.
Obviously, any delay in getting your hands on the money is a bad thing. Cashflow is important and waiting 14 days isn’t ideal.
Both PayPal and Amazon, obviously, will keep their hands on disputed funds. And that’s understandable.
But my seller chum noted the ultimate absurdity of the delay in Amazon’s disbursement. On his Amazon seller dashboard, the company based in Seattle is offering him finance. If you’re an Amazon seller, the loans are competitive and in your face. Read more about Amazon Lending.
From all the reports I’ve heard from people who have taken finance from Amazon: it’s quick and easy to apply and funds arrive in your bank account same day. Easy access to a bit of finance can be useful for marketplace sellers and Amazon do it well at competitive rates.
But really, isn’t ironic that an Amazon seller can grab cash from Amazon on a loan same day but has to wait 14 for money earned to come their way?
Swifter settlement of Amazon accounts would be welcome. And we know they can do it. So why does it take so long?
4 Responses
Mine takes about 3 working days to jump from Amazon to my bank account. I think it’s always been about 3 working days.
And it’s WORKING days too.
With PayPal I can withdraw on a Saturday / Sunday and be able to spend it on Saturday/Sunday if I wanted to.
I put it down to the arrogance of Amazon.
What I hadn’t realised until recently was that you can initiate – force the transfer yourself.
When you go to the payments page, there is a big button which says request transfer now.
It still states that it will take 3-5 working days but at least it saves waiting 14 ish days for the process to even start when you leave it to it’s own devices.
It still in the dark ages compared to Paypal though, as many have said it’s pretty much instantly in your bank account.
People forget amazon is a company. Paypal are a company that until about 3 years ago also took a few days for payments to arrive.
Banks have been doing it quite a bit longer.
Give it time, all eu companies may one day use instant transfer.
Most business payments still use BACS which works on a three working day cycle.
Amazon could switch to Faster Payments and send payments in (near) real time. This may require them to upgrade their back end systems if they currently process the payments once a (working) day.