Amazon is slowly but surely making a move to become a part of everything and it's latest foray is in the mobile payments category.
It had just recently released the Fire Phone and quietly it launched Amazon Wallet just a few days ago. The app, available on the Fire Phone and Android smartphones, lets customers organize and store loyalty, reward and gift cards. It doesn't support debit and credit cards as well as well as mobile payments, but that's alright. If documents from Staples are to be believed, it looks like Amazon has mobile payments covered thanks to the "Amazon Card Reader."
As a credit card reader, the Amazon Card Reader is due to be stocked in Staples stores next month, costing $9.99 apiece. It will be competing with square and PayPal, as well as Staple who also has an in-house brand of card readers.
No specific launch date was mentioned in the documents from Staples but it does note that stores have been requested to wait until August 12 before releasing any announcements or putting up signs about the card reader from Amazon. There are even diagrams already detailing where Amazon's newest offering would be located exactly in Staples store shelves, curbing doubts that the product may not be on its on way. That is unless there's an elaborate plan to fool Staples, which is unlikely.
What makes the Amazon Card Reader different from others already in the market? Other than being a little bit more affordable, not much. Credit card readers, after all, mostly work in the same way. It may have an advantage over other brands in terms of reputation because Amazon has been handling thousands of dollars in purchases for many, many years and has securely done so to protect its customers.
There are also rumors that Amazon is working on a mobile payment solution based on fingerprinting technology, much like how Apple is pursuing the use of Touch ID with national retailers. If Amazon is dabbling in using biometric fingerprint scanners, the company's Lab126 hardware division will definitely be involved.
Credit card readers are hardware components that connect to smartphones via headphone jacks. Through the hardware, users will be able to swipe credit cards to make purchases which will be processed by a corresponding app. Once a transaction is processed, a confirmation number will be sent. Amazon and other companies offering credit card readers make profit from the service by receiving a percentage of a purchase that was completed.
