Is Amazon Getting Ready To Take On PayPal?

from the and-would-it-be-effective? dept

Thu, Jun 19th 2008 8:01am — Mike Masnick

Plenty of other companies have tried to take on PayPal and discovered that it was a lot harder than it looked. Even though there are a lot of folks dissatisfied with PayPal, most attempts to compete with it have fallen flat. Even Google's efforts haven't really made a huge dent. However, could Amazon shake things up a bit? Over the years, it's done a few things to put its toes in the water of personal payment systems, and now some are predicting that it's gearing up to launch a full on PayPal competitor in the next few months. The analyst who wrote that report notes that Amazon isn't "just another" PayPal competitor, suggesting that its knowledge and experience with online retailing will allow it to create something better. It would certainly be an interesting fit with other "web services" that Amazon has been offering lately -- and would even tie further into Amazon's existing knowledge and scalability. That said, for whatever reason, this market has been a tough one to crack, so we should probably wait and see what the specifics are (if any) before determining its likelihood of success or failure.

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Filed Under: online payments, payments, paypal
Companies: amazon, ebay, paypal

20 Comments

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Ima Fish, 19 Jun 2008 @ 8:15am

Other than to create profit for eBay and screw over users, is there anything PayPal does that cannot be done with a credit card? It is simply a fear of giving out your credit card number that makes people sign up for PayPal?
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- DigitalAngel, 19 Jun 2008 @ 8:43am
  
  Re:
  It's laziness and impulse buy mentality. If I don't have to enter in my CC number, I'm more willing to buy without thinking. Same is true with Amazon's one-click system.
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- Doug (profile), 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:33am
  
  Re:
  Huh? For me, paypal has nothing to do with not giving out my credit card number. With paypal I can accept credit cards as payment from anyone with a credit card. Without paypal I would need a credit card merchant account to do this, which is far more expensive than a free paypal account. When you just sell something every once in a while on ebay, and want to accept credit cards, paypal is most assuredly the way to go.
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- Wesha, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:48am
  
  Paypal is first and foremost the money transfer service.
  I mostly care about it as a way to send and receive money to/from my friends, fast and easy. Don't care about giving my CC # to anybody -- with the proliferation of virtual CC #'s and strong "100% no responsibility for unauthorized purchases" policies, I no longer worry.
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  - Wesha, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:50am
    
    Re: Paypal is first and foremost the money transfer service.
    P.S. The moment Google offers that functionality, I'll switch to it. But so far, Google is only about checkout/shopping cart solution. Which is useless for my purposes, so I don't care much about it.
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Mike B, 19 Jun 2008 @ 8:45am

paypal
Paypal can enable people to accept donations or credit card payments without having to setup an entire credit card processing system.

Setting up CC processing on your own is a PITA, and has lots of little fee's, where Paypal makes it fairly easy to deal with for anyone.

That said, I would gladly welcome another service as long as it has the same ability for donations. Google Checkout fails in that regard which is why most websites have stuck with Paypal.
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- Ima Fish, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:01am
  
  Re: paypal
  "Setting up CC processing on your own is a PITA, and has lots of little fee's, where Paypal makes it fairly easy to deal with for anyone."
  
  Thanks, I wasn't thinking about the sellers' side, I was only thinking about the buyers'.
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JBB, 19 Jun 2008 @ 8:53am

Pay Pal Loves eBay
I do not see even the great Google really doing much in this area thanks to Pay Pal's integration into eBay and tons of other online vendors. What makes Pay Pal useful to buyers is that a lot of vendors, even small time eBay vendors, can accept credit card or bank account payments through Pay Pal. What makes it valuable to vendors is that nearly everyone and their dog has a Pay Pal account now. I think the only way Google is going to do much in this area is if they can bring on a huge online vendor, like say Amazon, or to offer some substantial perks that Pay Pal can't match.
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- some old guy, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:00am
  
  Re: Pay Pal Loves eBay
  What makes it valuable to vendors is that nearly everyone and their dog has a Pay Pal account now
  
  Your world is an extremely narrow subset of the entire world. I know more people that refuse to even touch paypal than I know people with accounts.
  
  You are right about the fact that ebay made paypal successful, but you seem to not realize the fact that ebay owns paypal... And that ebay actively prevents other such services.
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- Agonizing Fury, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:16am
  
  Re: Pay Pal Loves eBay
  Wouldn't it be a violation of PayPal's Terms of Use to set up an account for your dog?
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  - Wesha, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:49am
    
    Re: Re: Pay Pal Loves eBay
    Does your dog have an SSN [paypal needs to open an account]? :-b
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    - Rose M. Welch, 19 Jun 2008 @ 12:02pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Pay Pal Loves eBay
      I have a PayPal account and they certainly don't have my social security number.
      
      Just to make a point though, I would never, ever, ever, ever use PayPal to shop online. Ever. However, I built a site for a non-profit organization that had no credit cards and no bank account, so I linked it to my business bank account so that they can take cc donations.
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- TRV, 9 Nov 2008 @ 6:20pm
  
  Re: Pay Pal Loves eBay
  Pay Pal is the pits. I used ot be an ebay seller until I was forced to use Pay Pal - which charges more fees on top of ebay fees. I guess since ebay owns Paypal, it's really all ebay fees. By the time an item is sold, the seller is getting a minimal amount for all of the effort/time to list, answer questions, package, and send.
  In any case, I hope that buyers on ebay don't use PayPal.
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Andrew Green, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:00am

PayPal
Oh how I hope this is true. Mike B's point above is exactly right -- PayPal has a near-monopoly as a system for individuals to accept ad-hoc credit card payments. Google Checkout and payment gateways like authorize.net require you to have a merchant account.
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Wayne, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:20am

Don't use Pay Pal
Never have and never will. I think the fact that ebay owns the payment method is in conflict of interest. No thanks.
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James, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:27am

This is retarded.
Paypal is a great tool for smaller businesses and websites. It provides a secure way to accept and process payments. It allows for donations and other stuff too. All you Paypal bashers are whinning like babies. Get back to work.
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Haywood, 19 Jun 2008 @ 9:40am

As an early adopter
I have my share of problems with Paypal, but it solves more than it creates. I am happier shopping New Egg & others, knowing they accept it. I detest getting into databases, the central nature of Paypal is a huge plus. Opposite to the folks who won't touch it, if a seller refuses to take Paypal or requires me to go through an alternative checkout, they better be offering something no one else has, that I really require. I gladly pay a few dollars more rather than go through some unknown checkout with questionable data retention policies and security.
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Roger, 19 Jun 2008 @ 10:25am

Good deal for Amazon
While I'm sure Amazon has as favorable an arrangement with the credit cards companies as possible, setting up their own direct payment system would alleviate the 1-3% fee they pay on each CC transaction...this could be a significant savings for them.

If Amazon does this right (limited liability in case of fraud, net-30 payment arrangement, awards programs, etc) then I'd definitely be interested.
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Thane, 19 Jun 2008 @ 11:09am

WHY?
Why would Amazon do this? Sellers can sell used and new items on Amazon.com now. And when I buy one of these I use my credit card as I would any other Amazon purchase.

What's the POINT to having a paypal competitor. It's not like any Amazon vendors take paypal now - or NEED TO.
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- Hacker Killer, 28 Aug 2008 @ 2:21pm
  
  Re: WHY?
  If they want my business they will need to accept paypal. Not everyone wants to get entangled with credit cards. Debit cards allow some who want to control their spending better.
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