Amazon Offers Retailers Discounts to Adopt Payment System(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Amazon Offers Retailers Discounts to Adopt Payment System
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-02/amazon-said-to-offer-retailers-discounts-to-adopt-payment-system
52 comments
Agree with the sentiment but, purely from personal experience, I really don't like submitting my details for every retailer I might buy stuff from. Not so much from a security pov but all the hoops I have to jump through like creating a username and password that's actually accepted first time, and so on.
I've gotten to the stage now where I won't buy from another retailer where I have to create another account, if at all possible.
As consequence my online purchase history (aside from grocery shopping) for the past 3 years is almost exclusively amazon.
If I were a retailer I would be looking to make the buying process as slick and seamless as possible and, alas, amazon can provide me with a solution.
I've gotten to the stage now where I won't buy from another retailer where I have to create another account, if at all possible.
As consequence my online purchase history (aside from grocery shopping) for the past 3 years is almost exclusively amazon.
If I were a retailer I would be looking to make the buying process as slick and seamless as possible and, alas, amazon can provide me with a solution.
Same reason anyone goes to a shop these days: They want the item now.
People aren’t going to magically discover Amazon now if they process payments. Most retail shoppers are well aware they can buy the same items online for cheaper or at least the same price.
What retailers should really fear is a world where people no longer buy things impulsively or at the exact moment of need.
People aren’t going to magically discover Amazon now if they process payments. Most retail shoppers are well aware they can buy the same items online for cheaper or at least the same price.
What retailers should really fear is a world where people no longer buy things impulsively or at the exact moment of need.
One big advantage of PayPal over other payment methods (that's usually lost on consumers) is that they have extremely friendly merchant policies when it comes to fraud or seller protection.
With a credit card all it takes is a button press (or phone call) to reverse a charge and it gets with-held for about 90 days at best, and completely reversed with no recourse at worst. According to Stripe, card companies do not communicate back about the status of these disputes in any way, and no discussion is allowed except for one response from the merchant which requires you to send PDFs (mostly automated by Stripe). They don't even tell you if the customer withdraws the dispute and funds still get held for up to 90 days!. And valid reasons range from fraud (on the buyer side) to simply dissatisfaction with a product, all of which becomes the merchant's burden to bear. On top of that, to add insult to injury, the credit card company adds a fee to provide you with this terrible service.
PayPal, and most other "payment facilitators" do a much better job handling disputes. In PayPal's case they provide a much fairer arbitration process (funds are held by PayPal, and a website with message thread is created allowing communication between the merchant, customer, and arbitrator). The whole process happens within a span of days rather than months. And PayPal manages to do this without charging any more than credit card companies do (via Stripe et al). I've also done disputes through Affirm, a PayPal competitor, and they equally handled them in a fair and easy manner.
This ends up making credit cards super risky for smaller merchants if their transaction volume is low and transaction amounts are high. As someone who runs a small business I highly welcome these alternative payment facilitators, even if they charge the same rates as credit cards, because they do provide a much improved service over the old credit card companies, and that's even with all the convenience features services like Stripe provides.
With a credit card all it takes is a button press (or phone call) to reverse a charge and it gets with-held for about 90 days at best, and completely reversed with no recourse at worst. According to Stripe, card companies do not communicate back about the status of these disputes in any way, and no discussion is allowed except for one response from the merchant which requires you to send PDFs (mostly automated by Stripe). They don't even tell you if the customer withdraws the dispute and funds still get held for up to 90 days!. And valid reasons range from fraud (on the buyer side) to simply dissatisfaction with a product, all of which becomes the merchant's burden to bear. On top of that, to add insult to injury, the credit card company adds a fee to provide you with this terrible service.
PayPal, and most other "payment facilitators" do a much better job handling disputes. In PayPal's case they provide a much fairer arbitration process (funds are held by PayPal, and a website with message thread is created allowing communication between the merchant, customer, and arbitrator). The whole process happens within a span of days rather than months. And PayPal manages to do this without charging any more than credit card companies do (via Stripe et al). I've also done disputes through Affirm, a PayPal competitor, and they equally handled them in a fair and easy manner.
This ends up making credit cards super risky for smaller merchants if their transaction volume is low and transaction amounts are high. As someone who runs a small business I highly welcome these alternative payment facilitators, even if they charge the same rates as credit cards, because they do provide a much improved service over the old credit card companies, and that's even with all the convenience features services like Stripe provides.
> PayPal, and most other "payment facilitators" do a much better job handling disputes. In PayPal's case they provide a much fairer arbitration process (funds are held by PayPal, and a website with message thread is created allowing communication between the merchant, customer, and arbitrator).
How does this work if the customer paid Paypal with a credit card and initiated a chargeback? I get the credit card/user could be blacklisted but PayPal would still be out the money even if the seller won the arbitration case.
How does this work if the customer paid Paypal with a credit card and initiated a chargeback? I get the credit card/user could be blacklisted but PayPal would still be out the money even if the seller won the arbitration case.
PayPal seller protection appears to cover liability for chargebacks (given you win the dispute with PayPal). I've never personally encountered a case where they went straight to a card chargeback vs PayPal resolution.
I had this happen once; I tried first with Paypal, who wouldn't pay my money back (I was outside their time-frame), then went to my bank who handled the charge-back. Didn't affect my account.
Card companies generally warn customers that they’ll be banned by PayPal if they continue with the chargeback, and encourage them to file a dispute instead.
Never encountered this when filing a chargeback on an item or service purchased through PayPal, nor has it negatively affected my PayPal account.
It probably depends on how much you do it. I'd imagine they know how much their average revenue per customer is and they'd cut people off after the chargebacks exceed a certain threshold.
Depends on the time of year, but especially when dealing with sketchy merchants (low end providers/vendors), if PayPal gives me any gruff, its straight to American Express for me. Perhaps PayPal wants to avoid violating the terms of their merchant agreement, which banning users that weren't mostly fraudulent would probably not jive with? American Express is very strict with processors
Amex probably has more to lose than PayPal does if PayPal went to war with them.
American Express isn't afraid to drop a large merchant if they're mis-treating customers or not profitable, look at what happened with Costco. Visa/Mastercard/Discover won't go to war, but Amex will with a smile on their face.
That's against paypal tos and paypal usually bans that customer
Not related to the content of the article, but I'm impressed that Bloomberg managed to add another layer of dark patterns to the auto playing scrolling video- there's a full video overlay that you have to click through to unmute the audio before you can actually stop the video from playing.
If you're on Firefox, you can disable HTML5 autoplay:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-autop...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-autop...
On Safari/macOS with content blocking, it auto-plays but is muted by default (remembered setting from before).
Perfect play to:
1. Find out what people are buying in stores and not on amazon, and figure out how to get them to switch
2. Use this data to target more advertising/recommendations across amazon
3. Use the purchase data to perhaps create whole new brick and mortar stores that cater to the most in-demand products in different areas, like a more targeted walmart -- squeezing out the stores that once bought into this program.
I'd say it's a short term win, at the sake of long term loss of stores.
That being said, companies like this should declare a non-compete with the businesses they're luring in. Chomp!
1. Find out what people are buying in stores and not on amazon, and figure out how to get them to switch
2. Use this data to target more advertising/recommendations across amazon
3. Use the purchase data to perhaps create whole new brick and mortar stores that cater to the most in-demand products in different areas, like a more targeted walmart -- squeezing out the stores that once bought into this program.
I'd say it's a short term win, at the sake of long term loss of stores.
That being said, companies like this should declare a non-compete with the businesses they're luring in. Chomp!
As a consumer I like Amazon but this has a lot of potential to cross ethical lines.
I do not want to see Amazon analyzing my buying patterns across more vendors.
I do not want to see Amazon analyzing my buying patterns across more vendors.
They already do it. Credit Card companies like MasterCard and AmEx have been selling data to advertisers for at least 8 years now. That plus all the data you can extrapolate from other sources can give anyone an accurate picture of your consumption habits.
Is this in their TOS? Do you know whether one can opt out? Are there any electronic payments schemes that (excluding the e-coins) don't share consumption data?
It seems that you can actually opt-out. Here is the website for MasterCard opt out: https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/what-we-do/...
You probably can find similar pages for other companies.
You probably can find similar pages for other companies.
Their wording is very confusing for me - "To opt-out from our anonymization of your personal information to perform data analyses, please provide your Mastercard or Maestro payment card number below."
To me it sounds like, "we are anonymizing your personal info, but you can opt-out and allow us to perform data analytics using your personal info as it is."
To me it sounds like, "we are anonymizing your personal info, but you can opt-out and allow us to perform data analytics using your personal info as it is."
This claims the data is anonymized. I honestly don't really care if my purchases are analyzed in aggregate. I understood GP to be more concerned about personalized data being sold to advertisers. I certainly would be.
Amazon uses Stripe as well for some of it's transactions https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-quietly-starts-using-st...
1. Offer someone a deal that's too good to be true, because it is.
2. hemorrhage money while undercutting competition
3. Jack up prices once you've got enough market penetration to stick around or have killed your competition
2. hemorrhage money while undercutting competition
3. Jack up prices once you've got enough market penetration to stick around or have killed your competition
3. Implement your business now that you have enough transaction data to prove you can do it profitably
I was wondering what was up with the amazonpay.com domain that appeared in my NoScript list sometime the last couple week (on amazon.com).
So far Amazon still works without enabling it but I doubt that'll last.
So far Amazon still works without enabling it but I doubt that'll last.
Increasing returns in action.
As a merchant Amazon has to take a few other steps before I use Amazon Pay.
About a year ago I attempted to use the Amazon Pay WooCommerce Extension but had to turn it off because it was basically taking over the checkout page, placing itself at the very top of the page above the other payment options (https://in30minutes.com/amazon-pay-woocommerce-extension-why...).
Another consideration: How many vendors want to give even more power to the Amazon juggernaut? I like dealing with healthy, balanced ecosystems, and right now Amazon has far too much power in my product niche (publishing). It sucks dealing with policy changes, neglect of the piracy problem, and the fear that my account may be summarily penalized because of some algorithmic tweak or obscure violation (recent example: "One or more of your products doesn't meet the financial threshold established by Amazon and is no longer eligible for advertising via Amazon Marketing Services." WTF does that even mean?)
The last thing I want to see is the payments space similarly dominated by a greedy, uncaring giantco that "owns" the customers coming to my website. The behavior with the WooCommerce extension made me realize how bad they can be.
About a year ago I attempted to use the Amazon Pay WooCommerce Extension but had to turn it off because it was basically taking over the checkout page, placing itself at the very top of the page above the other payment options (https://in30minutes.com/amazon-pay-woocommerce-extension-why...).
Another consideration: How many vendors want to give even more power to the Amazon juggernaut? I like dealing with healthy, balanced ecosystems, and right now Amazon has far too much power in my product niche (publishing). It sucks dealing with policy changes, neglect of the piracy problem, and the fear that my account may be summarily penalized because of some algorithmic tweak or obscure violation (recent example: "One or more of your products doesn't meet the financial threshold established by Amazon and is no longer eligible for advertising via Amazon Marketing Services." WTF does that even mean?)
The last thing I want to see is the payments space similarly dominated by a greedy, uncaring giantco that "owns" the customers coming to my website. The behavior with the WooCommerce extension made me realize how bad they can be.
I'm not familiar with the extension, but you can build your own using their sdk. Extensions and auto-generated options usually have intrusive design choices.
$PYPL hugely down on the news. $SQ took a hit too, weirdly. (I mean at 2:50 PM, after hours is separate with SQ's earnings tonight)
Amazon dips its toes in this space all the time. It's hard to tell how serious they are.
Amazon Pay has been relaunched at least once.
Amazon Register (CC processor which competed with Square) died in 2015: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/amazon-shutting-do...
Amazon Handmade (the Etsy killer) went nowhere and languishes. Surprised they didn't kill it yet.
Amazon WebPay shut down years ago: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/11/amazon-killing-fre...
How do merchants know the investment is worth it this time? (Especially if they may some day eat your market, once they have enough data on it.)
Amazon dips its toes in this space all the time. It's hard to tell how serious they are.
Amazon Pay has been relaunched at least once.
Amazon Register (CC processor which competed with Square) died in 2015: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/amazon-shutting-do...
Amazon Handmade (the Etsy killer) went nowhere and languishes. Surprised they didn't kill it yet.
Amazon WebPay shut down years ago: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/11/amazon-killing-fre...
How do merchants know the investment is worth it this time? (Especially if they may some day eat your market, once they have enough data on it.)
It isn't worth the risk to switch to Amazon. The payments industry right now is cutthroat, with First Data offering clients rates like 1.5 cents per transaction and no basis points over interchange. This is insane compared to what the merchant industry was charging just a few years ago, to the point that many of First Data's own ISOs are being severely undercut on price by the company that provides their own backend.
Why would you choose to be at Amazon's behest, when you can pay less and know you won't need to lift a finger for multiple years wrt credit & debit processing.
Why would you choose to be at Amazon's behest, when you can pay less and know you won't need to lift a finger for multiple years wrt credit & debit processing.
> First Data offering clients rates like 1.5 cents per transaction and no basis points over interchange
WTF? Where are they offering this!? Even if this is true, which sounds unbelievable, it's certainly not available globally
WTF? Where are they offering this!? Even if this is true, which sounds unbelievable, it's certainly not available globally
They've been offering it to most of the clients I used to work with in the grocery industry, Mercury is matching it too. Might not be available to every SIC, but perhaps its a good excuse to buy into a small grocer that does $150k/month in processing and run all your volume through that.
Grocers pay among the lowest rates for credit card processing, I think that was a big part of Amazon's very loud attempts at grocery. They don't care whether it succeeds if it knocks a few dozen basis points off their interchange rates!
Grocers pay among the lowest rates for credit card processing, I think that was a big part of Amazon's very loud attempts at grocery. They don't care whether it succeeds if it knocks a few dozen basis points off their interchange rates!
Sorry but it utterly defies belief that Amazon were able to reduce their MDR by loudly pretending to be a grocer.
The banker scans the document with a frown. He strokes his chin thoughtfully.
"Amazon.. Amazon. Where have I heard that.. Oh yeah, the grocer! Zero basis points!"MDR? Use english please!
Back on topic, different SICs[1] get different interchange rates from Visa, Mastercard and the like. Multiple companies have sued to lower certain SICs interchange rates[2]. Amazon's SIC has changed over time, and it could easily be argued that they fit into multiple SICs.
Its up to the sales org that handles them to appropriately code their SIC, Amazon could easily have switched to processing with a new platform for Amazon Fresh, and slowly moved most of their volume over without negative repercussions from Visa/Mastercard.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Industrial_Classifica... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Interchange_Fee_a...
Back on topic, different SICs[1] get different interchange rates from Visa, Mastercard and the like. Multiple companies have sued to lower certain SICs interchange rates[2]. Amazon's SIC has changed over time, and it could easily be argued that they fit into multiple SICs.
Its up to the sales org that handles them to appropriately code their SIC, Amazon could easily have switched to processing with a new platform for Amazon Fresh, and slowly moved most of their volume over without negative repercussions from Visa/Mastercard.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Industrial_Classifica... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Interchange_Fee_a...
This is pretty confusing, because it seemed like Amazon made a big push to sign merchants up for its payment service 10 years ago and then completely abandoned it.
From a merchant perspective, I totally understand being wary. Even as a former Amazon employee I'm regularly surprised to learn new areas the company has expanded into.
But from a customer perspective, I'd be glad for this to take off. I would prefer to checkout using Amazon as a payment processor than Paypal, and Square (seemingly the other prominent option these days) doesn't seem to let me use a single set of credentials across merchants, which is always obnoxious. From a customer perspective, I've had almost nothing but good experiences with Amazon, and most of the bad ones (delivery estimate issues) wouldn't impact this space.
But from a customer perspective, I'd be glad for this to take off. I would prefer to checkout using Amazon as a payment processor than Paypal, and Square (seemingly the other prominent option these days) doesn't seem to let me use a single set of credentials across merchants, which is always obnoxious. From a customer perspective, I've had almost nothing but good experiences with Amazon, and most of the bad ones (delivery estimate issues) wouldn't impact this space.
This would be the last thing I would want to use as a retail store.
1) Customer buys product X from me
2) Payment is processed by Amazon
3) Amazon matches the customer with their own records, sends an advertisement for that same product, at a lower cost
4a) Customer returns product and buys from Amazon
4b) Customer orders from Amazon next time they need it
Edit: For the record, Amazon wouldn't even need to be able to identify the exact products you purchased, enough damage could be done based only on your businesses classification. Technology, clothing, houseware ect.
1) Customer buys product X from me
2) Payment is processed by Amazon
3) Amazon matches the customer with their own records, sends an advertisement for that same product, at a lower cost
4a) Customer returns product and buys from Amazon
4b) Customer orders from Amazon next time they need it
Edit: For the record, Amazon wouldn't even need to be able to identify the exact products you purchased, enough damage could be done based only on your businesses classification. Technology, clothing, houseware ect.
I'm not so sure about this. Customers already are familiar with purchasing on Amazon. So if anything, Amazon increasing advertising for your product will only increase demand for that product. And that same customer who made the choice to purchase at your store should still purchase at your store since that choice was there to begin with and they already chose your store.
The only difference would be if that customer was not familiar with Amazon's offering prior to purchasing at your store. But only until we get concrete numbers and evidence can we conclude if that number who will be driven to Amazon would balance against the customers who are driven by advertising for more demand towards your store.
The only difference would be if that customer was not familiar with Amazon's offering prior to purchasing at your store. But only until we get concrete numbers and evidence can we conclude if that number who will be driven to Amazon would balance against the customers who are driven by advertising for more demand towards your store.
Ultimately the difference will be quite nuanced for each individual user. However, if Amazon is able to figure out what the user purchased (whether it's directly provided during checkout, or they're able to identify it by looking at the charge and comparing it to your publicly available inventory online), it would be quiet easy for Amazon to say "Hey, you just purchased X for $100, we have it for $80"
4c) Customer receives counterfeit product from commingled stock
These are people who already have Amazon accounts. If the product was cheaper at Amazon they would have made the purchase there from the start.
There's no way Amazon could lower the price enough to offset the hassle of dealing with a return - not to mention you often have to pay return shipping.
There's no way Amazon could lower the price enough to offset the hassle of dealing with a return - not to mention you often have to pay return shipping.
>There's no way Amazon could lower the price enough to offset the hassle of dealing with a return
Customer: Wow, I like this $100 blender.
Amazon: You could have got it from us for <strike>$110</strike> we mean $80.
Customer: Damn, I paid too much, I guess I'll just shop Amazon first next time.
Customer: Wow, I like this $100 blender.
Amazon: You could have got it from us for <strike>$110</strike> we mean $80.
Customer: Damn, I paid too much, I guess I'll just shop Amazon first next time.
> I guess I'll just shop Amazon first next time.
Keep in mind, this is already an Amazon customer. They almost certainly already shop Amazon first.
This is a given before you even start.
If you are using this, it's either because you are selling things Amazon doesn't sell (and despite how large they are, there's a ton of stuff like that). Or you have some kind of advantage over Amazon that they can not match.
If all you are doing is matching, or slightly beating Amazon, you already lost before you even implemented Amazon Pay.
Keep in mind, this is already an Amazon customer. They almost certainly already shop Amazon first.
This is a given before you even start.
If you are using this, it's either because you are selling things Amazon doesn't sell (and despite how large they are, there's a ton of stuff like that). Or you have some kind of advantage over Amazon that they can not match.
If all you are doing is matching, or slightly beating Amazon, you already lost before you even implemented Amazon Pay.
That is terribly kind to Amazon, I'd hold off on presuming every customer, or even a majority of customers always check Amazon first when going to buy items. If that were the case, Amazon would be much much bigger.
This exactly. I think a lot of people forget how far a dollar has to go for some people.
Personally, I agree.
That said, for any retailer already selling on Amazon the risk is minimal. That is, they are already living with this and (I presume) don't care.
That said, for any retailer already selling on Amazon the risk is minimal. That is, they are already living with this and (I presume) don't care.
And this doesn’t even mention the itemized list of all stock that I might be selling that this larger retailer now knows about me….