Amazon Checkout and Simple Pay

This week, Amazon published a brand new set of tools for merchants. We already had PayPal and Google Checkout, now we have the same with Amazon.

We will notice that Google Checkout has had a hard time to really catch up with PayPal. I’m sure Google is doing okay on that front, but you rarely see a website with a Google Checkout button. One reason why the Google Checkout was not being used so much is that their interface is excellent in complexity (we can clearly see that it was written by people with doctorates.) I did not see Amazon’s yet, but I’d bet that their API is straight forward in comparison. If implementing a cart payment takes you a whole month, you may just as well not do it (well, Made to Order Software has done it! But still…)

On the other hand, Amazon already has millions of links from everyday people to sell whatever Amazon accepts to sell (which is pretty much everything you can imagine as long as it is legal.) Their weight cannot be ignored. Paypal is just that, Paypal. Amazon is a lot more. It already includes the stores.

And of course, Paypal is somewhat difficult to use. Amazon has worked on their Checkout process for years to make it as user friendly as possible (heard of that One Click patent?) So having an Amazon button will make a lot of sense to a lot of people. It will certainly spread quickly. And we will probably soon offer that option on our own website!