Amazon Offers a Mobile Option

Amazon.com Inc. is offering a mobile phone checkout application to merchants that use its payments software.

The Seattle online retailer's Mobile Payments Service lets shoppers use payment and shipping information stored in their Amazon.com accounts to complete transactions made with mobile phones.

The service was built on Amazon's Payments infrastructure, which other merchants can use to handle consumer purchases through their Web sites.

"The end customer will have a payment experience on the mobile device similar to the experience on the online Web sites," an Amazon spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Merchants that use Amazon's Flexible Payment Service, which facilitates the transfer of funds between two parties, are already set up to use the mobile service.

Participating merchants can offer the payment option through dedicated applications or Web sites optimized for mobile phones.

Shoppers who select the Amazon payments option are "taken to a mobile-optimized page where he or she enters … Amazon payment credentials and password," the spokeswoman said. "Once the payment is authorized, the customer is redirected to the merchant site for downloading content or for payment confirmation."

Consumers can choose any payment method that they have already enrolled with Amazon, including credit cards, direct debits to checking accounts or Amazon stored-value accounts.

Merchants get the funds as soon as the transaction settles and can transfer the money from their Amazon payments accounts to their bank accounts.

Amazon charges sellers per-transaction fees that vary depending on the consumer's payment method and the transaction amount, the spokeswoman said.

For transactions larger than $10, Amazon charges 1.5% of the sale plus 1 cent for Amazon Payments balance transfers, 2% plus 5 cents for direct debits and 2.9% plus 30 cents for credit card payments.

For transactions of less than $10, Amazon charges 1.5% plus 1 cent for Amazon Payments balance transfers, 2% plus 5 cents for direct debits and 5% plus 5 cents for credit card payments.

Handmark Inc., a creator and distributor of mobile applications and services, said Monday that it is using the Amazon service.

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