Amazon Payments for B2B Software
We sell B2B software, and receive most of our payments by bank transfer or cheque. We're currently using Google Checkout to take online card payments.
We have some issues with Google Checkout though:
- Support is non-existent
- As a UK business, we can only accept payments in GBP
- They reject too many legitimate orders, losing us money as some customers get pissed off and go elsewhere
- They often take days to make an authorisation/rejection decision for orders. Sometimes they do it in minutes, other times it's days
So I've been looking at Amazon Payments, which is now available in the UK. I've been in touch with their sales team, who were quick to respond to all my queries. Here's what I see as the benefits:
- They will provide phone and email based support
- We could accept payments in GBP or EUR (unfortunately not USD as well, as they require a physical presence in the USA to allow this)
- They say they make an authorisation/rejection decision for each order within 15 minutes
Customers would have to sign up for an Amazon account before they could purchase (they also have to do this with Google Checkout).
So, my question is, do you think business customers would use Amazon Payments, or be put off by it?
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Ok I have to ask... Paypal? – Anonymous 12 years ago
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Paypal has a really bad reputation, and the web is awash with stories of them closing accounts and retaining the funds for no reason. This is B2B software, and I really don't want potential buyers to hesitate once they have made a decision to purchase. – Cocowalla 12 years ago
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They've improved a lot in recent years. Reason I mention is you can accept any currency, users don't even need an account etc. Definitely worth considering if you don't find a decent alternative. – Anonymous 12 years ago
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We ended up going with FastSpring. The charges are higher than I would like, but the service and integration options are good. They also (so far, anyway) authorise payments very quickly. – Cocowalla 12 years ago
2 Answers
We ended up going with FastSpring. The charges are higher than I would like, but the service and integration options are good.
They also (so far, anyway) authorise payments very quickly (1-2 minutes, rather than the nonsense we experienced with Google Checkout).
Allow purchase with credit cards.
Unless you know a large percentage of users already have an Amazon account, why make them jump through hoops? Just about every business has a credit card.
Paypal is another big player here where you can allow credit card transactions pretty easily and without signup (You may need an advanced account & setup if you want to 100% remove paypal branding though)
