Amazon Checkout. Should I stay or should I go?

[Rupert]

Just spotted the Amazon Checkout. Probably should bot be posting just before I am away from my desk, but it is a quiet Sat AM, and I am pondering it.

As I see it, it gives the user the chance to buy from my store using the delivery address's and the log in at Amazon, so potentially increasing conversion rates, and security for deliving to different address's.

On the downside, Amazon get a %, and the know what I sell, how much, etc and so can analyse the data, and decide if they want to stock the products. Just like they do if you sell stuff on thir site as a merchant. 

I am not comfortable with this, but a part of me finds it inevitable.   

Its not like they are even that cheap:

Pricing

There are no start-up charges, monthly charges or hidden fees. Our processing fee is 3.4% of the transaction amount plus £0.20 per transaction.

You may qualify for lower transaction fees based on your 3 month average transaction volume. These are provided as shown below.
Purchase payments received (monthly)    % of Transaction    Per Transaction Fee
£0.00 - £1,500.00    3.4%    £0.20
£1,501.00 - £6,000.00    2.9%    £0.20
£6,001.00 - £15,000.00    2.4%    £0.20
£15,001.00 - £55,000.00    1.9%    £0.20
above £55,000.00    1.4%    £0.20

https://payments.amazon.co.uk/business/?ld=SEUKCBAADGogBROPT2#pricing


Anyone using it? 

[Rooftop]

We keep looking at it. However the thought of helping them screw us over further is less than comfortable.

Between using sales data against us, nicking the customers, using our media against us & driving the margins down to almost nothing, I'm not sure how much more of their help we can take.

[Brad]

I've used it as a customer here in the US.

I needed to order beer brewing supplies. I had my choice of new to me, online stores to order from and chose the one with Amazon checkout, because I was tired of filling out my name, address and payment data.  Amazon checkout made ordering as easy as ordering from Amazon itself.  I was satisfied with the service and ordered more later.  However they later redid their website and shopping cart and dropped Amazon checkout and I find that I have not reordered anything from them as I now have to re-register as a customer and can't be bothered.

I think that ease of the first purchase helps if you sell impulse buy kind of items.

[rcjordan]

I've used it. In fact, I was just offered the option to use Amazon for payment on the merchant's own cart on his separate site and I used it. ($400 item. It worked kind of like Paypal payment. This was the first time I have seen it offered as a private cart payment option.) Why? Because [A] it would possibly keep my credit card data from yet-another online cc database. [B ]Ease of use, no need to fill in the cc/shipping details. And [C] it put the merchant support under Amazon's whip. If you have a problem with delivery or defective merchandise it's been my experience on more than one occassion that Amazon flogs the merchant until the situation is resolved.

That said, a couple of times when I was ordering long-tail items via a merchant's Amazon store I have seen Amazon among the "available from other merchants" with Amazon's in stock availability for some future date, i.e., " coming soon." I have no way of knowing but it did cross my mind that these merchants had been screwed.

[Leona]

I am debating it as well at the moment. I don't like amazon having my sales and customer data but then they have my products on there anyway so it is not that much of an issue. I should be installing it next week so will keep you updated as to whether it helps conversion.

[Rupert]

I have heard that if you do small turn over, they are not interested in pinching your business.  Once it becomes significant, (where that line lies we could only guess) then they do decide to supply themselves. But then that applies if you are selling as a partner on Amazon. 

Leona, I would be very interested to know what information you pass to them.  They know the T/O of course, but beyond that? I Guess they just look at your website if it is doing well.

[Leona]

So far set up is a bit of a pain in the butt, haven't got to actually running sales yet, started set up process on Friday and just got this email

'Thank you for registering for Checkout by Amazon.  Unfortunately we are unable to verify the business information provided during the registration for your Amazon Payments seller account.

In order to confirm your account details and progress you registration, we kindly ask you to provide one of the following documents.

- Extract from the Company Register 
- Articles of Association'

not that difficult to verify seen as it is a limited company, before that they said that they were going to call me for my passport number as well which seems a bit excessive too.

[I, Brian]

No, it's only basic anti-money laundering duties. Paypal did it to me before, and setting up a merchant account requires similar SFAIK.