Internet retail giant Amazon recently launched its new payment service which will make it possible for other online retailers to use it on their website. The service is named Checkout and closely follows the introduction of another payment service by Amazon labeled Simple Pay. Checkout is being seen as offering a direct challenge to auction giant, eBay’s preferred method of payment service, Paypal.

Checkout from Amazon has a host of payment options for its buyers which number more than 81 million at present. The most important aspect of the new payment service is that customers can use the same payment details like credit card numbers and shipping addresses which they have submitted to Amazon to buy products and services from other online retailers who use Checkout.

Checkout offers other online retailers the chance to use Amazon’s highly efficient one-click ordering system besides making use of its tools in the calculation of sales tax and shipping costs. Other than these retailers can also use Amazon’s system of tracking the shipment of customers’ orders. However not all online retailers seem keen to make us of Checkout. One reason for this, experts feel, is that Amazon often ends with competing with the same retailers that it is now wooing with its new payment service.

-Kalyani Mookherji