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Amazon Payment Systems Take On PayPal

Posted by samzenpus on from the deliver-me-from-paypal dept.

Bridger writes "Amazon has introduced two new payment systems for merchants and consumers, which brings it into a market dominated by PayPal. Google introduced a similar system for merchants and consumers in 2006, also called Checkout, but it has not found favor with online retailers. Auction giant eBay, which owns PayPal, has prevented consumers from using the Google system."

10 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Same Song, Different Verse by Khakionion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Auction giant eBay, which owns PayPal, has prevented consumers from using the Google system.

    So, thank goodness Amazon has released a system, so that eBay will not use it too.

    --
    OMG! Wau!
    1. Re:Same Song, Different Verse by Threni · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > I personally would want something like a cross between paypal

      I'd be interested in a cross between paypal and something good, which is supported by people who give a shit about their customers and don't just send stock replies to users who are complaining about getting only stock replies. I've stopped using eBay because of it too, although it looks like I got out just in time - by all accounts it's much more dodgy to buy/sell stuff on there these days.

  2. Illegal? by Exanon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Auction giant eBay, which owns PayPal, has prevented consumers from using the Google system."

    Am I naive or doesn't that violate some kind of consumer rights?

    1. Re:Illegal? by DRobson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      However Fred does not own Mastercard and does not have an inherent financial interest in denying Visa.

  3. Re:I, for one, welcome our new checkout overlord. by sporkme · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is just a competitor to paypal-ebay. If it works, they compete. If it works well, congratulations, they contend. If it flops, it has a lot of company. It is imperative that the government keeps it filthy mitts off.

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    FairTax baby!
  4. This is *very* good news by bangzilla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As someone who has had the misfortune to try to resolve an eBay non-delivery issue with Paypal (never got back to me and then closed the request for support) I'm happy that there will be alternatives to PayPal. Paypal's customer service is *horrible* -- in comparison Amazon's customer service is one of, if not the, best in the world. Good news too is that Amazon already has my information (and millions of other people's) so anyone using the new service doesn't have the huge task of trying to convince buyers to sign up -- they are already signed up with a service they already trust.

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    Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
  5. Is it global ? by jaiyen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    TFA is pretty short on details, but I'd be interested in knowing the range of countries Amazon's system can be used in. Anyone know? Google Checkout looked promising but is limited to just US/UK (at least the last time I checked), and there's a wider world out there!

    I realise international banking transfers is a complicated area, but it's one Paypal seems to be miles ahead of it's competitors in at present. Google don't seem to have problems with Adsense/Adwords in this regard though, so it's a bit puzzling to me why Checkout is so limited in who they accept.

    Which is a shame really, as it leaves only Paypal and all of its problems that everyone's familiar with.

  6. Re:Google Payments / Checkout could work if ... by enkidu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Expanding a payments service to other countries is not as simple as writing code: government permits need to be obtained; legal entities created, certified and approved; transaction partners identified, negotiations completed, contracts signed, accounting methods and reconciliation formats agreed upon, tested and verified. Auditors need to be chosen, hired, audits managed. Even a company like PayPal with dozens of experienced legal and financial team members, takes more than a year to release in a new country. For companies with little or no financial institutional experience (beyond typical corporate finance that is) it is an undertaking which is several orders of magnitude more complex for a company to manage and execute than writing, testing and deploying code.

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    There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
    -Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
  7. What E-Bay did that most people missed.. by Channard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .. or at least the press missed, was forcing PayPal on people by force. Over the space of about six months, they've been requiring people to take PayPal if they had less than 100 feedback, and then if they listed in certain categories. Now they've expanded that to nearly all categories, so that if you want to list anything on E-Bay, you have to take PayPal. By that time I'd already started using Amazon, but that was the final nail in the coffin.

  8. Re:I, for one, welcome our new checkout overlord. by VdG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think a competitor to PayPal would be a good thing, but I disagree about the government(s) keeping out of it. PayPal and any other similar service need to be under similar regulation to other financial services, to provide reasonable consumer protection - something PayPal have tried to avoid. There have been numerous complaints in this area over the years and it's one of the main things which has kept me from getting a PayPal account.