8 of Amazon's Successes and Failures in Payments
November 26, 2015 11:01 PM
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Amazon.com is big enough to try things that other retailers would find too risky. Over the years it has developed many groundbreaking payment technologies and revolutionized e-commerce, but not all of its ideas have done well.
1-Click Payments
Its 1-Click system has been a game-changer for the online checkout process. Other retailers have sought to emulate Amazon's user-friendly checkout system, and Apple has licensed the company's 1-Click patent and trademark for use with its online store.
Mathias Rosenthal/Mathias Rosenthal
Machine Learning
By harvesting various types of data, the company for many years has used technology to gain helpful insights on customers, buying patterns and products they might like. Indeed, more than a third of the company's sales come from recommendations.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Hosting Other Sellers
After ironing out some early wrinkles, Amazon has prospered from hosting other sellers on its website. Third-party sellers accounted for more than 40 percent of the total units sold on Amazon in 2014, according to company data published in January.
Mike Kane/Bloomberg
Firefly
The Firefly software, which runs on Amazon phones and tablets, can scan its surroundings and identify products by look or sound. It then directs users to the product's listing on Amazon's website, whether it's a physical item such as a book or a digital item such as a TV episode.
Wolfe, Daniel
Dash Button
The limitation of the WiFi-connected product is that each button is specific to the brand on its label. A button for mac-and-cheese cannot be repurposed for reordering rolls of toilet paper. Nevertheless, customers can now use the Dash button from over 500 products from 29 brands.
Amazon Local Register
The functionality Amazon's discontinued mobile card reader provided paled in comparison to Square's offering in every aspect other than its price.
Amazon Echo
While it's yet another gadget that consumers must pay a hefty price to own Amazon typically lists it at $179 it brings the retailer directly into a customer's home and enables orders to be placed with a simple spoken command.
Mike Kane/Bloomberg
Amazon Wallet App
Amazon quietly launched its Amazon Wallet beta in late July 2014 and pulled the product from market six months later. It allowed users to store and manage gift and loyalty cards, but not credit or debit cards. Many viewed this limitation as a nail in the app's coffin.
