5 ms·

Amazon WebPay takes on paypal.

90 points by chanux 17y ago

sjunkin 17y ago
about time, that space could use some competition and amazon has been executing well. I really look forward to this
- city41 17y ago
  Not only that but Amazon is uniquely positioned to actually give PayPal a run for its money. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.
smcnally 17y ago
how's it deal with ~$.99 purchases? are their fees comparable to paypal's for a couple thousand / month in transactions? other than competition in the space - which, agreed, is a Good Thing - why would i use this as a 1) merchant or 2) consumer over paypal?
- chrischen 17y ago
  You can already use Amazon FPS with micropayments. I believe under the micropayments fee structure a $0.99 purchase would result in $0.10 transaction fee.
there 17y ago
from the faq: (https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/personal/webpay/faq https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/personal/webpay/faq) 5. Is there a fee for using Amazon WebPay? No, there is no charge to send money using Amazon WebPay. i'm assuming that's just for purchases. how much are the fees to receive money?
- dc2k08 17y ago
  From what I can tell there is no fee to send or receive payments with a limit capped at $500/month. Once a CC and bank account is verified, the limit could be either raised or removed at Amazon's discretion. A business account carries charges. Details are here: https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/about?nodeId=6022#fees https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/about?nodeId=6022#fees The user agreement says that the difference between a personal account and a business account is that personal accounts may not receive credit card payments.
- ccorda 17y ago
  I don't see any fees. Amazon would "make money" with access to interest free funds (money sitting in accounts), and by having more people pay for purchases via ACH, saving on credit cards fees.
  - smiler 17y ago
    And also not to mention getting spending data on transactions outside of amazon.com to help build up customer profiles :)
  - dstik 17y ago
    Not so fast, developers interested in using this for store fronts should see their fee/pricing structure: https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=devpricing/fpspricing https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=devpricing... compare to PayPal: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/UserAgreement_full&locale.x=en_US#8.%20Fees https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-c....
  - blasdel 17y ago
    Paypal tried making money on the float, but it didn't work. Amazon has a somewhat better chance of pulling that off since they don't have to ignite a fraud clusterfuck by giving out cash to get users like Paypal did. More importantly, their users have much less incentive to cashout since they know that the store of all stores will take it. But the interest they could make on the float is nothing compared to the tithes they pay to the credit card companies, especially with the damn rewards cards. Just getting their prime customers to sign up for EFT, for normal Amazon purchases, has got to be worth a fuckton of money to them.
patio11 17y ago
My perpetual problem with Amazon payments is that, unlike Paypal, they don't have ubiquity among my customers and, unlike Google Checkout, they can't bribe me with favorable treatment on the search page to make me put up with non-ubiquity.
- rgrieselhuber 17y ago
  Is there favorable treatment from an SEO perspective if you use Google Checkout?
  - dmix 17y ago
    That would be highly unlikely in organic search results.
  - qeorge 17y ago
    No, but they show an icon in AdWords and Google Products One Box results next to stores that take Checkout. Any trust indicator like that usually helps. It may increase your chances of appearing in the One Box as well (as opposed to simply determining whether you get an icon next to your name), but I haven't heard that definitively.
  - billclerico 17y ago
    there is speculation that google could use checkout to track conversions imagine the power of tracking a customer from ad click all the way through to checkout
- qeorge 17y ago
  Interesting, I've always assumed the reverse, which is my main interest in Amazon payments. I assume mainstream people are more likely to have an Amazon account than a Paypal account. Anecdotally, my sister, father, and grandfather all have Amazon accounts, and none have Paypal accounts. Also, everyone I encounter who's not technical knows what Amazon is, but few know Paypal.
- dangrover 17y ago
  Why not offer both?
nopal 17y ago
Unfortunately, all users have to have an Amazon account to make a payment through WebPay. With PayPal's API, a site can keep the user on the site for the entire payment process, performing the purchase via a Web service call. What alternative services are there to PayPal that offer the ability to act only as payment processors that get called via an API?
- qeorge 17y ago
  Good point. I suppose this is more competing with Paypal's standard payments (free), as opposed to Paypal's Payments Pro ($30/month). Although even with the free Paypal account the user can still pay with a CC, on paypal.com. What alternative services are there to PayPal that offer the ability to act only as payment processors that get called via an API? Authorize.net is the 800 lb. gorilla, and I believe 2checkout offers a similar service.
- teej 17y ago
  > What alternative services are there to PayPal that offer the ability to act only as payment processors that get called via an API? What you're looking for is called a Payment Gateway. The defacto Ruby library for utilizing them is called Active Merchant (http://activemerchant.rubyforge.org/ http://activemerchant.rubyforge.org/) and it includes ~30 different companies. If you're looking for a list of all the big ones, that's a good place to start. I've personally used Authorize.net & Paypal before. Braintree is the company name that gets thrown around in 37signals' circle.
- papachito 17y ago
  Yes there is http://www.chargify.com/ http://www.chargify.com/
  - jhancock 17y ago
    Chargify has yet to send me an email for their beta (which I've signed up for several times). They don't even bother to send an email acknowledging my interest. Its a great looking website and an interesting value proposition. When it gets ready for prime time, I'll try it if I haven't already moved on to a solution thats actually available.
acangiano 17y ago
It's US only for now. One of PayPal's strengths is its international nature.
- petercooper 17y ago
  Amazon has a bad track record for international deployment of anything relating to billing. Amazon Flexible Payments Service has been around ages and is still US only. Their Honor System didn't make it out of the US either. PayPal has its issues but they've always been useful for the large international diaspora of US dealing but non-US dwelling wannabe Americans.. :-)
  - andrewcooke 17y ago
    it's easy to buy things from amazon from here in chile (and, as far as i know, other places in south america). so at least something related to billing works just fine.
  - davidw 17y ago
    I'm not particularly enamored of Amazon's international deployment for anything. In Europe, for instance, they only have stores for Germany, France, and the UK, and each of those sites is available only in that language. So if you're elsewhere, say Spain, or Italy or Slovenia or something, I guess you just try and get by with whatever language you know, which is most likely English. But there's something lame about them not just simply shipping from the place most likely to get you your products in a timely manner, as they do in the US. In other words... what they have works, it's just fiddly and not very pleasant to use. OTOH, as a company they seem a lot less evil than Paypal, so I'll be rooting for them.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      They also split affiliate programs so that I can't include links for UK and US folk, say, that will simply take them to the most appropriate store I have to provide 2 links or do acrobatics sniffing IPs and whatnot.
- deleted 17y ago
nhebb 17y ago
I think this is just for personal use. If you want to use Amazon as a payment processor through your website, you probably need to use a business-class service like the Amazon Flexible Payments Service listed here: https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business
pkrumins 17y ago
Knowing how great Amazon customer service it, it has to be amazing!
blasdel 17y ago
Ha, I can't add my checking account because I don't have State-issued ID, just a US Passport. Cashiers just love hunting for a birthdate on a passport when I buy beer, but I haven't been needing to do that lately since I've started getting my beer delivered to my door, ironically enough by Amazon Fresh, and they don't check ID (though they won't leave it on your doorstep).
moon_of_moon 17y ago
bravo.
visakhcr 17y ago
It's Amazon's take on Ebay also

90 points by chanux 17y ago

sjunkin 17y ago

about time, that space could use some competition and amazon has been executing well. I really look forward to this

city41 17y ago
Not only that but Amazon is uniquely positioned to actually give PayPal a run for its money. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

smcnally 17y ago

how's it deal with ~$.99 purchases? are their fees comparable to paypal's for a couple thousand / month in transactions? other than competition in the space - which, agreed, is a Good Thing - why would i use this as a 1) merchant or 2) consumer over paypal?

chrischen 17y ago
You can already use Amazon FPS with micropayments. I believe under the micropayments fee structure a $0.99 purchase would result in $0.10 transaction fee.

there 17y ago

from the faq: (https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/personal/webpay/faq https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/personal/webpay/faq) 5. Is there a fee for using Amazon WebPay? No, there is no charge to send money using Amazon WebPay. i'm assuming that's just for purchases. how much are the fees to receive money?

dc2k08 17y ago
From what I can tell there is no fee to send or receive payments with a limit capped at $500/month. Once a CC and bank account is verified, the limit could be either raised or removed at Amazon's discretion. A business account carries charges. Details are here: https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/about?nodeId=6022#fees https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/about?nodeId=6022#fees The user agreement says that the difference between a personal account and a business account is that personal accounts may not receive credit card payments.
ccorda 17y ago
I don't see any fees. Amazon would "make money" with access to interest free funds (money sitting in accounts), and by having more people pay for purchases via ACH, saving on credit cards fees.
- smiler 17y ago
  And also not to mention getting spending data on transactions outside of amazon.com to help build up customer profiles :)
- dstik 17y ago
  Not so fast, developers interested in using this for store fronts should see their fee/pricing structure: https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=devpricing/fpspricing https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=devpricing... compare to PayPal: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/UserAgreement_full&locale.x=en_US#8.%20Fees https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-c....
- blasdel 17y ago
  Paypal tried making money on the float, but it didn't work. Amazon has a somewhat better chance of pulling that off since they don't have to ignite a fraud clusterfuck by giving out cash to get users like Paypal did. More importantly, their users have much less incentive to cashout since they know that the store of all stores will take it. But the interest they could make on the float is nothing compared to the tithes they pay to the credit card companies, especially with the damn rewards cards. Just getting their prime customers to sign up for EFT, for normal Amazon purchases, has got to be worth a fuckton of money to them.

patio11 17y ago

My perpetual problem with Amazon payments is that, unlike Paypal, they don't have ubiquity among my customers and, unlike Google Checkout, they can't bribe me with favorable treatment on the search page to make me put up with non-ubiquity.

rgrieselhuber 17y ago
Is there favorable treatment from an SEO perspective if you use Google Checkout?
- dmix 17y ago
  That would be highly unlikely in organic search results.
- qeorge 17y ago
  No, but they show an icon in AdWords and Google Products One Box results next to stores that take Checkout. Any trust indicator like that usually helps. It may increase your chances of appearing in the One Box as well (as opposed to simply determining whether you get an icon next to your name), but I haven't heard that definitively.
- billclerico 17y ago
  there is speculation that google could use checkout to track conversions imagine the power of tracking a customer from ad click all the way through to checkout
qeorge 17y ago
Interesting, I've always assumed the reverse, which is my main interest in Amazon payments. I assume mainstream people are more likely to have an Amazon account than a Paypal account. Anecdotally, my sister, father, and grandfather all have Amazon accounts, and none have Paypal accounts. Also, everyone I encounter who's not technical knows what Amazon is, but few know Paypal.
dangrover 17y ago
Why not offer both?

nopal 17y ago

Unfortunately, all users have to have an Amazon account to make a payment through WebPay. With PayPal's API, a site can keep the user on the site for the entire payment process, performing the purchase via a Web service call. What alternative services are there to PayPal that offer the ability to act only as payment processors that get called via an API?

qeorge 17y ago
Good point. I suppose this is more competing with Paypal's standard payments (free), as opposed to Paypal's Payments Pro ($30/month). Although even with the free Paypal account the user can still pay with a CC, on paypal.com. What alternative services are there to PayPal that offer the ability to act only as payment processors that get called via an API? Authorize.net is the 800 lb. gorilla, and I believe 2checkout offers a similar service.
teej 17y ago
> What alternative services are there to PayPal that offer the ability to act only as payment processors that get called via an API? What you're looking for is called a Payment Gateway. The defacto Ruby library for utilizing them is called Active Merchant (http://activemerchant.rubyforge.org/ http://activemerchant.rubyforge.org/) and it includes ~30 different companies. If you're looking for a list of all the big ones, that's a good place to start. I've personally used Authorize.net & Paypal before. Braintree is the company name that gets thrown around in 37signals' circle.
papachito 17y ago
Yes there is http://www.chargify.com/ http://www.chargify.com/
- jhancock 17y ago
  Chargify has yet to send me an email for their beta (which I've signed up for several times). They don't even bother to send an email acknowledging my interest. Its a great looking website and an interesting value proposition. When it gets ready for prime time, I'll try it if I haven't already moved on to a solution thats actually available.

acangiano 17y ago

It's US only for now. One of PayPal's strengths is its international nature.

petercooper 17y ago
Amazon has a bad track record for international deployment of anything relating to billing. Amazon Flexible Payments Service has been around ages and is still US only. Their Honor System didn't make it out of the US either. PayPal has its issues but they've always been useful for the large international diaspora of US dealing but non-US dwelling wannabe Americans.. :-)
- andrewcooke 17y ago
  it's easy to buy things from amazon from here in chile (and, as far as i know, other places in south america). so at least something related to billing works just fine.
- davidw 17y ago
  I'm not particularly enamored of Amazon's international deployment for anything. In Europe, for instance, they only have stores for Germany, France, and the UK, and each of those sites is available only in that language. So if you're elsewhere, say Spain, or Italy or Slovenia or something, I guess you just try and get by with whatever language you know, which is most likely English. But there's something lame about them not just simply shipping from the place most likely to get you your products in a timely manner, as they do in the US. In other words... what they have works, it's just fiddly and not very pleasant to use. OTOH, as a company they seem a lot less evil than Paypal, so I'll be rooting for them.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    They also split affiliate programs so that I can't include links for UK and US folk, say, that will simply take them to the most appropriate store I have to provide 2 links or do acrobatics sniffing IPs and whatnot.
deleted 17y ago

nhebb 17y ago

I think this is just for personal use. If you want to use Amazon as a payment processor through your website, you probably need to use a business-class service like the Amazon Flexible Payments Service listed here: https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business

pkrumins 17y ago

Knowing how great Amazon customer service it, it has to be amazing!

blasdel 17y ago

Ha, I can't add my checking account because I don't have State-issued ID, just a US Passport. Cashiers just love hunting for a birthdate on a passport when I buy beer, but I haven't been needing to do that lately since I've started getting my beer delivered to my door, ironically enough by Amazon Fresh, and they don't check ID (though they won't leave it on your doorstep).

moon_of_moon 17y ago

bravo.

visakhcr 17y ago

It's Amazon's take on Ebay also