Amazon begins letting select US customers make payments using Venmo, and plans to roll out the option to all US shoppers before Black Friday
a Convenient, Easy-to-Use, and Secure Payment Option Annie Palmer / CNBC : Amazon will now let users pay with Venmo at checkout Praful Rawal / TechPP : How to Archive Amazon Orders on App and Desktop Tweets: Tonya Riley / @tonyajoriley : Given Amazon already has its own payment system I can think of zero reasons why this partnership exists outside of both companies getting a bunch of extra data about consumers. https://techcrunch.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Venmo had already moved beyond person-to-person transfers through its first third-party app integrations and a subsequent push to make the service usable at more than two million US retailers. Amazon brings that merchant-acceptance strategy to a far more consequential checkout surface.
The partnership also proved temporary: related coverage records Amazon's later decision to stop accepting Venmo. That makes the rollout a useful example of how a large retailer can test a payment option without making it a permanent part of checkout.
First-order effects
- Select Amazon customers gain Venmo as a checkout option immediately, with Amazon targeting wider US availability before Black Friday.
- Venmo gains access to Amazon shoppers at the point of purchase, extending the service beyond the retailer network PayPal had been building.
Second-order effects
- Amazon's checkout now competes for customers' stored payment preferences with the cards and payment methods already available on the marketplace.
- Venmo's merchant-acceptance push gains a high-profile validation point, while its later removal shows partners that access to a large checkout can be reversible.
Third-order effects
- Large commerce platforms are becoming gatekeepers for wallet adoption: payment brands can gain reach quickly through integration, but remain dependent on the platform's continuing support.
- The later termination suggests payment-option expansion is likely to be managed as an ongoing portfolio decision rather than a one-way march toward ever more checkout methods.
The trend: Digital wallets are expanding through retailer integrations, while major marketplaces retain decisive control over which payment methods reach customers.