This morning, Amazon announced Local Register, a Square-like swipe payment system powered by the company’s own payment platform. Perfect for business owners, Local Register is a little card reader which plugs into a tablet and phone, coming paired with an application available for iOS and Android, which takes payment, then deposits payments in the user’s account the next business day.
What makes it a bit different from Square is the percentage taken on each purchase, which currently sits at 1.75% until January 2015, which will then be raised to 2.5% next year. Square’s cut is and will remain at 2.75% for each swipe.
If you are a business owner, a small percentage taken on each of your transactions is a sweet deal, plus, having access to Amazon’s customer support is an added bonus.
Own a business? Go check it out.
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The Amazon page says the 1.75% rate is through January of 2016, not 2015.
Video shows that as well… 🙂
Reading the Amazon site I am seeing a number of complaints that you have to set up a new Amazon account with a different email than you use in your original Amazon account.
What retail merchant (besides services) would want to allow Amazon to have access to their customer and transaction data? I don’t know what the data restrictions are but maybe they could check credit card number against amazon accounts to get customer info to email customer promo or recommendations at next log in for same or similar product. Or offer complimentary product as a “feature”. Hey you just bought a printer, we at Amazon have toner for you cheaper than that merchant (except leave out the “you just bought a printer and merchant parts”). I wouldn’t want any Google payment service to have access either.
In fact retail merchants and consumers should not allow banks to use credit card purchase information for any purpose besides processing the payment transaction (i.e. no data storage and mining for building customer profiles). These card processors get paid for services they provide, no need to monetize our data.
This is why I am moving back to mainly brick and mortar cash only transactions with the occasional prepaid card usage not attached to my name. Of course the next step is for businesses to push government to disallow cash transactions.
You know damn well that once Amazon has your customers info they will get bombarded with e-mails selling stuff. Do your customers a favor and stick with Square
Square will just monetize the data as well.
14 days to get money from cards manually keyed is crazy. I currently wait 2 business days for all transactions.
where do you see this info about 14 days listed? i tried looking for that specifically and all i could find was mention of next business day deposits.
makes me want to start a business….
Very nice. If I used this, I would just pass that 1.75/2.5% fee onto the customer if they wanted to pay with a card.
that is against the terms and conditions. credit card fees cannot be passed onto the customer.
Ahh, garbage. I wonder if that’s the case for all businesses, because I’ve seen businesses charge a fee for using credit cards. My first apartment complex did this if you tried to pay rent with any card.
Its against the terms and conditions for all credit cards. Same goes with Paypal and Square, the credit card fee is on the business, not the customer.
It is also against the terms and conditions for a business to set a minimum purchase for credit card transactions.
Actually, a federal law in in place now allowing minimum charges on credit cards. No term of service can get around this. Debit cards legally cannot be restricted by a minimum charge under any circumstance.
really? didn’t hear anything about that. I need to look into then. thanks for the update.
Yea I was under the same impression as you for along time, then someone pointed it out to me.
yes, i have seen this many places and thought it sucked, but never considered the legality of it. also didn’t know debit cards were exempt….i wonder if the place i get lunch knows that….lol.
“the credit card fee is on the business, not the customer”
In reality the fee is paid by the business and passed on to the customer through higher prices just like any cost of selling the product. Same as business taxes and passed on. And higher health care costs.
They are not suppose to charge a fee. However, many places offer a discount when using cash. Same thing, but one isn’t illegal.
Neither are illegal. One however is against yoru contract with the CC company (or gateway provider) while the other is not. Also I believe that the contract may be different when it comes to some utilities.
It is likely the case for all businesses. It’s enforced by reporting the issue to your credit card company which will get the merchant in trouble.
While true, it is not against the terms and conditions to offer a discount for paying cash. So basically you have to price all your items with the fee included, and then discount it to people who pay cash.
In the end, all costs are passed onto the customer. You just don’t see them.
Yes but now they can charge a surcharge thanks to a class action settlement.
But I personally won’t do business with anyone that charges it.
If I don’t have to slide my card 8 million times across the device, I would say it would be an upgrade from Square.