Why it matters to you
Adding PayPal would add another secure method of payment for Amazon customers.
PayPal is a pioneer of web payments and has made itself known all over the web. There is, however, one major website that has evaded its rise — Amazon. According to recent reports, that could soon change. PayPal confirmed in a report from Bloomberg that it has recently been in talks with Amazon to bring its payment services to the online shopping site.
“We have been in conversations with Amazon,” CEO Dan Schulman said in the interview with Bloomberg. “We’re closing in on 200 million users on our platform right now. At that scale, it’s hard for any retailer to think about not accepting PayPal.”
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A deal with Amazon would be huge for PayPal. Its shares have been in a slow decline of late and Amazon is estimated to account for 74.1 percent of all online sales.
There is likely a reason it has taken this long for Amazon to adopt PayPal as a payment platform. The company was once owned by Amazon rival Ebay but separated from the company around 18 months ago to focus on expanding its business to other websites and services. Since that split, Schulman has been trying to create as many agreements as possible in an attempt to expand the number of people using PayPal.
Amazon, however, has its own ambitions in the online payments business, according to Bloomberg. In fact, the company recently hired former PayPal employee Patrick Gauthier to head Amazon’s online payments efforts. Not only that, but Amazon began allowing users to pay for things on other websites using their Amazon account.
Many would likely celebrate if the online payment platform finally came to Amazon. Hopefully, the talks between the two companies will end in an agreement.