Less than two weeks after Groupon launched a mobile point-of-sale product, Amazon is reportedly prepping its own device to compete with the likes of Intuit, PayPal, Square, and VeriFone.
TechCrunch Thursday reported Amazon is targeting small chains of retailers to use the device as well as offering a significantly cheaper transaction rate compared with current offerings. TechCrunch’s sources said the rate could be as little as 1.9 percent of each transaction.
It’s no secret that Amazon has been eying the in-store physical, retail world. The company is reportedly looking to launch a number of retail stores. A credit card processor and mobile payments device could power payments at these stores.
Amazon could be entering this space at just the right time as there appears to be a need among retailers for such devices. TechCrunch noted a recent National Retail Federation survey that said while only 6 percent of merchants used mobile POS devices, some 50 percent of respondents planned to buy a solution in the next 18 months.
Amazon obviously will face competition in the marketplace. Mercator Advisory Group recently compared 16 different mobile POS products ranging from mobile card acceptance to more advanced registers. Click here to read more about the report.
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