May 01, 2009, 3:55 PM — Amazon Payments, which lets online store operators use Amazon's back-end systems to process customer transactions, is nothing new. What's new is that e-commerce solution providers -- jargon for companies such as CardinalCommerce that set up turnkey stores for aspiring online merchants -- will now offer Amazon Payments as part of the package.
The move, announced Thursday morning, potentially ties thousands of additional merchants -- and even non-profit organizations soliciting donations -- into Amazon's retail universe. CardinalCommerce is behind more than 30,000 stores. Another e-commerce provider, Miva Merchant, hosts 50,000. Magento claims 500,000 downloads of their e-commerce software. There are about 25 more companies in Amazon's new partner list.
While Amazon will be able to pick up a lot of business by making it easy for e-commerce sites to let customers use their Amazon.com accounts as an alternative to a one-time credit card transaction, there will be some losers. Innovative Merchant Solutions and other payment processors seem destined to lose transactions to Amazon.
