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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."

9 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. ecash / opencoin by jbaach · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hopefully someone will implement ecash again, e.g. opencoin.org, and will provide some more interesting payment features for the users.

  2. I, for one, welcome our new checkout overlord. by AdamInParadise · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As someone who had the dubious task of integrating the Paypal payment mechanism into a custom checkout process, I welcome this new "Checkout by Amazon" with open arms.

    --
    Nobox: Only simple products.
    1. Re:I, for one, welcome our new checkout overlord. by mpcooke3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I totally agree, we just integrated with paypal uk. My complaints are many. Firstly it isn't 1 system it's actually 3 different systems and depending what you want to do you may need to use multiple systems. Also some systems have multiple APIs, none of this is clearly documented, nor is it clearly documented what Cards do not work with the different systems.

      Despite claims that it works with most payment cards, the paypal system we were recommended to use won't accept American Express and will only accept newer Maestro cards if you give them an imaginary start date and pre-convert the currency to GBP (we process in dollars).

      It's a total joke.

      The support service involves ringing a special business helpline that will only work if you ring from a pre-authorised telphone and pretend to be the person who originally signed up for the service and even then if you press the wrong option the support involves getting read out the contents of an online help page.
      When you finally do get through to support and you ask them a question, they basically don't even know themselves what will work.

  3. Re:Same Song, Different Verse by biocute · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google doesn't have anything to sell, but not so for Amazon, it doesn't need eBay users to survive, Amazon has enough users to get this thing started.

    --
    Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
  4. Re:Same Song, Different Verse by erikina · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In all fairness I don't think either (Google's or Amazon's) attempt was designed as a full blown competitor to paypal. Which is a shame.

    I personally would want something like a cross between paypal and e-gold. Buyer beware (no freezing and locking accounts, which only effects legitimate sellers). But without the whole gold thing.

    It's the age of e-commerce, why still can't I send money easily/cheaply?

  5. Subscriptions? by pebcak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hopefully Amazon takes a lesson from Google. One of the problems with Google Checkout is that they don't allow subscriptions to be created. Google's transaction fees are lower than PayPal's, or my merchant account's, so I'd love to use them more heavily, but that's a major roadblock. I'm sure a lot of other small businesses are in the same situation.

  6. This isn't about eBay... this isn't like Paypal... by argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't use eBay, don't want to use eBay, and frankly wish I could get Paypal to quit telling me about eBay. I still have little interest in Google Checkout. I suppose I might sign up for it some time, but it's not even the same kind of business. Paypal works like a checking account, I can paypal small amounts of money around to anyone else who has a paypal account, they don't have to be set up as an online merchant, they can just take my money and spend it themselves. It's pretty much the online equivalent of cash. If Google Checkout has any comparable capabilities they're sure hiding it... for the end user all they are is another merchant service like the one Yahoo runs, but one that's tied specifically to Gmail and the other Google services. I can maybe see some convenience there but it's nothing like Paypal.

  7. Amazonbay by s7uar7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Lets hope it means there's an Amazon auction site on the way too: ebay needs some proper competition.

    1. Re:Amazonbay by mdfst13 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Err...yes, because Amazon's last auction site worked so well. Have you noticed that eBay is becoming more like Amazon? Payments to go through eBay's payment processor (PayPal). Greater concentration on fixed price (Buy It Now). Seller based browsing. Amazon had all those things first.

      Amazon already competes with eBay in online selling. Do they really need a variable price mechanism as well? It's one of those areas that scales naturally to a monopoly. Sellers want to run single auctions that maximize the buyers (more potential buyers means a higher top bid).

      Auctions is actually a niche market. It works best for unique objects, where the seller does not know how much a buyer is willing to pay. One of the challenges for eBay in recent years is that many of the people who have used auctions would really prefer a fixed price setting but have had to use auctions because that was the only place they could find their product.

      In far more countries than Amazon and selling through both auctions and fixed price, eBay's earnings are still lower than Amazon. Amazon would be better off launching in a new country (e.g. India or Australia) rather than trying to invade the auction market.

      The reason for Checkout By Amazon is simple. Amazon is moving to a model where people can pick and choose what Amazon services to use in selling their product. There's the Amazon Advantage program, where the product is in Amazon's warehouse, discoverable on Amazon's site, paid for through Amazon's checkout system, and shipped by Amazon (possibly bundled with other items). However, if people prefer, they can purchase those services separately:

      1. Store in Amazon's warehouse and ship with Amazon's discounts.

      2. Discovery through Amazon's sites (if they don't use Amazon's checkout, they can't have a detail page but can still purchase a link from Amazon to their site that appears in search results and on other detail pages).

      3. Pay through Amazon's payment processor. Amazon already had Simple Pay. It used to be called the Honor System. Checkout by Amazon is new only in that one couldn't use it separately previously but had to list the item on Amazon's site.

      Amazon is also different from eBay in that it offers listing on defined pages where all listings of a certain product are on the same page. This is the reverse of the auctions model, where every listing is essentially its own product. Discovery is expensive and hard. Payment is straight forward by comparison. As such, if you want to see an eBay competitor, you should look for a company that is competitive in search rather than in payment. Amazon currently does not have that kind of search, and it would be expensive for them to develop it (with no guarantee of success, see A9, where years of development failed to produce results).