Should you add the Amazon Payments Button to your store?

Are you looking for a proven way to increase your online business sales? Then adding Amazon Payments Button will do just that by providing your customers with a fast payment method they know and trust. Read on to discover more about how Amazon Payments can boost your online sales, how you can add buttons to your store and what fees you’ll have to pay for this service.

What is Amazon Login and Pay?

Amazon Login and Pay, also known as Amazon Payments, is a tool that allows customers to pay for products online through their Amazon account. If a customer clicks an Amazon Payments Button on your online store, they’ll pay for your product through their Amazon account. Since Amazon already has the customer’s credit card and address details saved, the checkout process is incredibly quick and easy.  

Why should you use Amazon Payments Buttons?

Here are the top reasons you should add an Amazon Payments Button to your online store:

• Customers trust Amazon because it’s a reputable brand that millions of people use. Shoppers can be reluctant to input their credit card details into an unknown site so if they see an option to pay through a company they trust, like Amazon, they’re much more likely to buy your product. Top fashion retailer AllSaints saw 24% of their customers choose to pay via Amazon within two weeks of launching the Amazon Payment service on their website.
• It’s cheap. Amazon charges just 2.9% – 3.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.
• Amazon Payments can increase your average order value. For example, AllSaints saw a 15% higher average order value after installing Amazon Payments Buttons.
• It’s fast and easy. Since Amazon already has the customer’s credit card and address details saved, there’s no need to input them again. This speeds up the buying process and makes it much more likely that the sale will be completed. AllSaints found that their checkout time was reduced by 70 seconds when they installed Amazon Login and Pay, which helped increase their checkout conversion rate by 34%.
• Free fraud protection. Amazon has sophisticated fraud-detection tools which you get free access to when you add Amazon Payments to your store.
• You keep your customer’s data. When you use Amazon buttons on your store, you retain complete control of your customer’s details and manage the shipping process yourself.
• There are no hidden costs. You won’t be charged any fees for setting up or canceling your Amazon Login and Pay account.

How do you add the Amazon Payments Button to your store?

Now you’ve seen the benefits of adding Amazon Payments Buttons, here’s how to install them and start increasing sales on your online store. For businesses in the United States, you will need the following:

• A US address and phone number.
• A US bank account.
• A credit card connected to a US address.
• A business ID, EIN or Personal Security Number.

Once you have proof of all this, sign-up to Amazon Payments here, by selecting the ‘For Merchants’ option. You’ll be given your own Seller ID account and access to the Seller Central site, which is where you’ll integrate your buttons with your website and manage all your sales and payments. Input your credit card details and set up a checking account on Seller Central.

Next, integrate your Amazon Buttons. This is an easy process on most e-commerce sites and stores such as FoxyCart, LemonStand, WooCommerce, 3DCart, Volusion, Shopify, or Magento. You can see the full list of Amazon’s e-commerce partners and integrations here. If you use a different e-commerce store, you can create your own custom code to integrate the buttons or buy a plug-in. As an example, Yahoo! charges $400 for their Amazon Payments integration plug-in.

When customers buy one of your products through the Amazon Payments Button, make sure you ship the item as quickly as possible and then capture payment for the order. Minus fees, you will then receive your earnings according to Amazon’s payment process, which is detailed below.  

How much does Amazon charge you to use their payment process?  

Here’s a breakdown of the fees Amazon charges for its payment buttons:

• Either a Domestic Processing Fee of 2.9% per transaction for products shipped and sold in the USA.
• Or a Cross-Border Processing Fee of 3.9% per transaction if the order is going to a country other than the USA.
• Every order, regardless of where it’s shipped, is charged a $0.30 Authorization Fee.

There’s also a Disputed Chargeback Fee of $20 which is non-refundable, as is the Authorization Fee. However, if a refund takes place you will receive your Domestic or Cross-Border Processing Fee back.

Amazon’s reserve policy

Amazon keeps a certain amount of your earnings for a short period to cover things like refunds, guarantees and customer complaints. This balance is called a ‘reserve’ and the exact amount of it will depend on how long you’ve been an Amazon merchant for and what kind of service you provide your customers with. Here are the specific reserve prices:

• When you first start selling with Amazon Payments you go through a 14-day observation period whereby all of your transactions are kept in reserve before they’re released.
• After that, you move into Tier 1. In this stage, Amazon holds either the entire transaction amount or the amount of all your unresolved payment disputes, whichever is higher, for seven days.
• After six months, once you’ve made 100 transactions through Amazon Payments, you can apply to upgrade to Tier 2. This means just 3% of your daily processed payments (based on the last 28-days average) is kept in reserve.
• If your Order Defect Rate, which measures how many customer complaints and chargebacks you receive, stays below 1%, you’re eligible to have the 3% reserve fee removed.

So, should you add Amazon Payments Buttons to your store? The answer is a resounding yes. Leveraging Amazon’s trustworthy brand power is a proven way to increase online sales. In addition, you won’t be charged extortionate transaction fees for using Amazon Payments Buttons. Get started to boost your business today.