Amazon.com launches the new payment service

There is good news for online merchants. Amazon.com has launched its payment processing services that will compete with eBay's Paypal and Google's 'Google Checkout' services.

Amazon services are called "Checkout By Amazon" and "Amazon Simple Pay".



Checkout By Amazon is a "complete checkout solution" which is similar to what Amazon.com provides at its own online store. It includes features such as Amazon's 1-Click functionality, tools for managing shipping charges, sales tax, promotions, and post-sales activities such as refunds, cancellations and charge-backs.

Amazon Simple Pay is simple version of 'Checkout by Amazon' with limited features.
If you don't need Amazon's end-to-end checkout pipeline and order management capabilities, but still want to enable your customers to use their payment information already on file at Amazon.com, use Amazon Simple Pay.

Both products have the same fee structure, which is pretty much standard. For transactions of $10 and up, merchants would pay 2.9% of the amount plus a 30-cent fee. For transactions lower than $10, the fee is 5% of the amount plus 5 cents.

Perhaps Amazon could have kept more competitive fees. But with a base of 81 million buyer accounts, it is expected to give Paypal (62 million accounts) and Google Checkout (no figures available on the number of accounts) a run for their money.