Rumor has it that Amazon is planning to launch some type of e-commerce business to allow payments and money transfers which will compete with PayPal. Some of you probably know that Amazon already has their Amazon Payments service that allows you to send and receive money, and shop with your mobile phone, but it’s limited to Amazon and “their partners.”
From the sounds of it, Amazon’s solution would be more widely used around the web than the current Amazon Payments, or at least that would be the goal. Analyst Derek Brown talked about it recently and said that Amazon “may soon launch a PayPal-esque payments service for use by consumers and merchants across the web, potentially siphoning growth and/or profit from eBay’s crown jewel.”
We’re not sure exactly what Amazon will do to expand Amazon Payments and compete with PayPal but it might be welcomed. Some people are frustrated with both eBay and PayPal for various reasons and are looking for an alternative way to make payments online. With a name like Amazon backing a service, they could potentially gather-up some loyal users.
Analysts say the service could launch late Summer or early Fall, so we’ll be keeping our eye for more details in the coming weeks…
Soruce: TechCrunch
I’d definitely stop using PayPal if Amazon came up with a service that would compete with it.
Same here… this just got me thinking about all of the people who accept donations through PayPal, and it would be nice to see Amazon setup a system that could do that as well.
So basically you’re saying that Amazon is just expanding the scope of Amazon Payments. It’s too bad that it won’t really work very well, we’ve already seen how Google Checkout basically went no where. Too many people are using PayPal and getting them to just switch isn’t as easy as some might think.
Amazon already handles donations for people online. Check out [amazon.com]
As for Amazon trying to compete with PayPal, I do see that this could be a very good thing. I would definitely use it if they created it. I would probably keep my PayPal account for just in case, but if Amazon gets it right I could probably drop it eventually.
Competition is very healthy
I wouldn’t say that Google Checkout went no where. I think that they just weren’t trying to compete with PayPal, and I actually use Google Checkout whenever possible. It’s pretty convenient, and that way you can hide your email address from the company you’re purchasing from.
Huh, I never knew that. I’m a little surprised that I’ve never seen anyone using them for donations.