Leading e-commerce company Amazon has been experimenting in recent times with its own online payments service, but nothing concrete has come of it thus far. While users can already use Amazon to pay for goods and services online in countries like the US, Germany, Japan, India and many others, the process as a whole is a bit cumbersome, as customers need to log-in to their Amazon accounts separately before such payments could be made. However, that could soon be a thing of the past as the Seattle, Washington-based e-commerce giant has now announced that third-party mobile app developers will henceforth have the option of including a dedicated ‘Pay With Amazon’ button within their apps to enable users to quickly sign-in, so as to process their payments without having to go through any additional hassles.
Online payments of course, is shaping up to be big business, and is tipped to become one of the fastest growing sectors in e-commerce. Traditional players in the industry like PayPal are increasingly facing competition from newer entrants like Samsung, Apple and of course Google with its Android Pay, which is believed to become one of the biggest names in the industry after the company’s initial foray in the sector with Google Wallet failed to gain much traction earlier. As is well known, Amazon does not support any of the aforementioned third-party online payment options on its own website. The e-commerce giant seemingly has its eyes set on being a major player itself, and towards that end, hired PayPal’s Patrick Gauthier earlier this year as its new head of external payments. The recent Money20/20 payments conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada, apparently also drew as many as 60 delegates from Amazon, in yet another clear indication of the company’s online-payments aspirations.
Talking about Amazon’s online payments service, Mr. Gauthier looked to address concerns regarding how much other retailers can trust Amazon, seeing as the company is, in essence, a competitor to them. According to him, third-party merchants on Amazon already account for 46 percent of the company’s business, and none of them ever had any reason to doubt the integrity of the e-commerce site. Mr. Gauthier also sought to reassure his would-be clients by pointing out that Amazon’s external payments business and its mainstay retail operations are separate entities with clear demarcations between the two. As for the financials, he said that the company’s online payments business has grown 180 percent globally this year so far over 2014, but refused to divulge the exact numbers.
Currently however, not many merchants support Amazon Payments, and the only well-known clients of the company as of now, include contemporary fashion retailer All Saints, tee-time booking service GolfNow, internet service provider on commercial flights GoGo and shoe-polish maker-turned bicycle and watch seller Shinola. As for Amazon’s modus operandi for getting retailers on-board for its fledgling payments business, Mr. Gauthier said the company is looking to tie-up with comparatively smaller companies with annual revenues of between $1 million and $1 billion.