Amazon Launches Online Payment Service

Amazon has started Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simply Pay, going head to head with PayPal and Google Checkout.

CNET has reported that Amazon has launched its own online payment service, a direct competitor with Paypal (owned by eBay) and Google Checkout. Whether the system will catch on or not, however, is a different matter.

Amazon calls Checkout by Amazon a “complete checkout solution,” for e-business, with tools to handle sales tax, shipping and other items, with that Amazon “one-click” payment. That’s very similar to Google Checkout, which arrived two years ago, but has yet to make a great impact.

Amazon Simple Pay is aimed at consumers, letting them use their Amazon account information to pay at other sites – putting it up against the mighty PayPal, which would seem to have the market already largely sewn up. One place it almost certainly won’t be used is eBay, which has already banned Google Checkout.