Amazon continues to build Amazon Payments

Amazon.com is promoting a free payment processing offer to businesses and organizations that begin accepting Checkout by Amazon or Amazon Simple Pay as April 29 as it continues to build its new Amazon Payments division.

Amazon Payments services are available for merchants, service providers and nonprofits. Tools include Checkout by Amazon, which offers customers access to their Amazon.com address book and payment information to buy quickly and easily and transact using Amazon's 1-Click ordering. Amazon Simple Pay allows customers to use payment information from their Amazon.com accounts without the need to re-enter the information and is designed for Web sites selling digital goods, offering subscriptions or services, or accepting donations.

More than 25 shopping cart and e-commerce service providers now include Amazon Payments as part of their offering. This makes it is easy for Web sites to begin offering Amazon Payments within the framework of the e-commerce solution already provided to them by these companies.

Nonprofit software provider Convio is integrating Amazon Payments into its fundraising platform to enable its client base to accept alternate payment methods for online donations.

In addition, plug-ins for widely-used open source e-commerce platforms, such as OsCommerce and ZenCart, are now available for quick and easy integration with Amazon Payments.

“Working with shopping cart and e-commerce solution providers to make sure their solutions seamlessly integrate with Amazon Payments was one of our immediate priorities when we launched Amazon Payments less than a year ago,” said Mark Stabingas, GM of Amazon Payments, in a statement.

The free processing offer runs through September 30.