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Amazon Local Register

localregister.amazon.com

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Re: Amazon Local Register

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That on top of the next day money deposit is a real incentive.

That is pretty common among modern payment processors, Square, Stripe, Bitpay, etc...

Considering that consumers have months to make a chargeback, this is a relatively new thing in the payments industry (last few years). I suspect it'll make the horror stories that much worse when a small business owner has already spent the money that someone wants refunded.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#152
post #67

They did not even bother to create some unique design of a landing page [1], just copied it from SquareUp [2] -> PayPal [3] pages: 1. http://localregister.amazon.com/ 2. https://squareup.com/ 3. https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader

It should not be shocking that three identical products have to convey similar sets of information to prospective customers.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#153
post #103

I'm interested to see how the "manufactured spent / churning" crowd will use this. There are credit cards with 2% (fidelity amex) or 2.2% (barlays arrival plus) cashback out there. Having a 1.75% fee on this will probably have some of them experiment :) I'm sure Amazon will shut that down, but I'd love to see how much spent people can run up before that happens.

Wouldn't that be considered fraud? Since you'd be defrauding Amex (genuinely curious).

Re: Amazon Local Register

#154
post #48

Using the audio jack like Square. Isn't there a way yet to use digital like USB yet.

Using the audio jack allows them to make a very dumb, very cheap reader. All you need is a magnetic head (like those in cassette decks) and a maybe a couple of basic components. See the disassembly of the Square reader: http://cosmodro.me/blog/2011/mar/25/rhombus-square-iskewedi/

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Local Register

#155
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is amazon going to undercut my barber or the brewery I go to with this data? It seems like there are plenty of businesses that could benefit from this and not be at risk to the "empire".

And if they do manage to undercut your barber aren't you interested to find out how. Hair cutting drone perhaps?

If they fly low enough?

Re: Amazon Local Register

#156
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously Amazon is different, because unlike credit card companies they are in the business of competing with small retailers. Particularly when you consider their "your margin is my opportunity" strategy giving this data to them should be a terrifying proposition for any business owner.

But there are so many places that Amazon does not compete with that there is a market for this. Obviously a small book store might not want to do this but what about restaurants, coffee shops, the plumber that comes to fix your toilet (or any service industry), the local tap room, and so on. Edit: Sorry, the idea of Amazon opening restaurants, coffee shops or tap rooms (which would also mean they start brewing their…

Amazon might not be competing with them right now, but they could be in 5 years time (as ridiculous as that sounds for your examples), and businesses should take the long term view. When it was just books most businesses ignored Amazon, but they've grown to encompass many, many industries now.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Money transfers to new suppliers always take a bit of faff to setup" How so? If I want to send money to a UK bank account to which I've not send money before, I: 1. Open my bank's app on my phone 2. Tap 'send money' 3. Type in the amount, the 6-digit sort code, the 8-digit account number, the person's name 4. Hit 'Send'. It's a little slower than swiping a card, but it also feels safer, as I don't have to give someo…

Who do you bank with? I bank with both Natwest and Barclays and neither of those will let you set up a new payee on their mobile apps. Sure you can send money, but only to payees you have set up online using 2FA.

I think Barclays will be adding the new payee option soon to the mobile app, as they're trying to promote it as the way to do stuff. Plus they have PingIt which basically does the same thing, but is a bit of a faff for the receiver.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Money transfers to new suppliers always take a bit of faff to setup" How so? If I want to send money to a UK bank account to which I've not send money before, I: 1. Open my bank's app on my phone 2. Tap 'send money' 3. Type in the amount, the 6-digit sort code, the 8-digit account number, the person's name 4. Hit 'Send'. It's a little slower than swiping a card, but it also feels safer, as I don't have to give someo…

Who do you bank with? I bank with both Natwest and Barclays and neither of those will let you set up a new payee on their mobile apps. Sure you can send money, but only to payees you have set up online using 2FA.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Local Register

#159
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.75% is a huge discount.

1.75% may be competitive and better than rates of some merchants receive; however, I had a negotiated rate of .4% for one of my businesses. One of the problems with the entire industry is misinformation, unlevel playing field (inability for your average merchant to negotiate the best rates), and the unscrupulous nature of the sales tactics of the merchant services themselves.

Do you know how the .4% gets split? I watched a Khan Academy video quite a while ago, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRzTaWZ6ebs and Sal says the interchange fees charged by banks is on the order of 2%.

Re: Amazon Local Register

#160
post #5

Can someone explain why manually keyed transactions cost more than swipes? I'm thinking there's more risk involved with those or something along those lines.

It's all statistics. Manually keyed transactions have higher fraud rate, thus higher transaction fee.
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