3 ms·

I don't get this. Seems like a late entry into a saturated and (at least in Square's case) not that lucrative market. Any insight into why you would do this

• bstpierre 12y ago
  Amazon already has all the infrastructure to deal with this, they can quickly achieve volume to build the readers at low cost (and take a loss in basically giving them away). Small shop owners are more likely to be familiar with the amazon brand versus square or others so their marketing/promotion is easier. Amazon very likely has tons of ways they can use the data they collect. They have opportunities for upsell: shops can buy ads, integrate with amazon on their website, start selling on amazon, etc. (speculation) Amazon sees threats from other competitors in this space, so they want to suck all the profit out of it. Note also that the business owner can spend funds on amazon immediately, or wait for funds to arrive in a bank account the next day. So amazon has a chance for extra sales there. I wonder if there's also a financial angle -- it says funds get deposited the next day, so it doesn't seem like amazon has a chance to sit on the funds for any length of time, but maybe there's some angle I'm not seeing.
• chippy 12y ago
  Amazon also has other services to shops and vendors.
• potatolicious 12y ago
  Saturated but most players are unprofitable. Amazon has an infinite well of money to not only out-price the competition but sustain a loss for long enough that the competition might actually die. Amazon also makes revenue off of attached services to merchants (Fulfillment by Amazon, the webstore, etc). This is part of the reason why Square has been trying to buy up merchant value-add companies.