Amazon Lets Others Use Its Checkout
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008Amazon is introducing a payment service for other online marketers and retailers to use.
Called “Checkout by Amazon” the service will let other websites use Amazon’s one-click ordering system, calculate sales tax and shipping costs, and let their customers track the shipment of their purchases.
Checkout by Amazon, along with the more basic, Amazon Simple Pay, which was launched on Tuesday, will compete with PayPal and Google Checkout, among other payment services. For both services, Amazon will charge a transaction fee that starts at 2.9 percent of the order amount, plus 30 cents per order (the fee goes down to 1.9 percent for sites doing more than $100,000 a month in sales). For transactions less than $10, Amazon charges 5 percent plus 5 cents.
While large retailers – likely to regard Amazon as a major competitor - may be reluctant to adopt the service, Checkout by Amazon (or Amazon Simple Pay), may appeal to plenty of small sites eager to provide customers with more payment options.
Sources: Brad Stone, “Amazon Offers Other Sites Use of Its Payment Service”, The New York Times, July 30, 2008, Erick Schonfeld, “Amazon Outsources Its Checkout Cart”, Tech Crunch, July 30, 2008
