Amazon has pulled the curtains on its Flexible Payment Service (FPS) and launched it in limited beta. And it’s a beauty.

FPS is not so much a consumer payment solution with heavy marketing but more a payment platform that can be used by developers to build payment solutions in the spirit of Amazon’s S3 storage product (eCommerce enabler). Here’s what it offers:

1. Send and receive money using credit card, bank account or Amazon Payments balance transfer as payment methods.
2. Create “Payment Instructions” to define conditions and constraints desired for a given transaction, and programmatically obtain payment authorizations or “tokens” that represent these Payment Instructions from customers.
3. Execute one-time, multiple, or recurring payments on behalf of customers.
   Aggregate micro-transactions into a single larger transaction using Prepaid and Postpaid capabilities.
4. Build payment applications where you are neither the sender nor the recipient of funds. You can build marketplace applications that enable the movement of money between two third parties.
5. View account balances, transaction histories, and transaction details on the Amazon Payments web site.

(more…)

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Following yesterday’s rumors of Amazon’s upcoming new payment system (of course no comments from Amazon), PayPal launched this morning a new feature that could drive significant sales for online retailers. PayPal Pay Later allows approved U.S. online retailers to offer their buyers (PayPal and guest users) to make purchases with no payments for 90 days when they use PayPal Express Checkout at checkout.

From PayPal’s press release:

Financing options and deferred payments have been proven to deliver increased sales and higher selling prices for merchants. According to a study conducted by Northstar Research Partners commissioned by PayPal, 56 percent of PayPal users are more likely to purchase from a retail site if a PayPal deferred payment option is available.

You can sign-up here for this new service.

This is going to take some wind out of I4Commerce’s BillMeLater product as I expect PayPal Pay Later to be easy to offer for both online retailers of all sizes. More importantly, I am expecting (hoping for) a similar product from Google Checkout and promotional financing that will eventually match the appealing “pay nothing for 24 months” deals offered by Bricks-and-Mortar retailers around the holidays (unfortunately you have to complete an application that rivals War and Peace to take advantage of them — huge opportunity for driving more consumers online).

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Back by popular demand, we’re excited to announce the expanded 2007 series of ‘ChannelAdvisor Insite‘ conferences, taking place in cities all over the UK and Ireland this summer.

If you’re an online retailer, planning your strategy for Q4 and beyond, then take a day away from the distractions of the office, and come to one of these highly informative one-day events.

Join ChannelAdvisor and industry experts, and your peers as we focus on some of the most effective strategies and techniques for boosting sales and improving the profitability of your online business. We will cover topics such as eBay, Amazon Seller Central, Google Checkout, PayPal Express Checkout, Paid Search Marketing and Shopping Comparison engines and, with a combination of presentations and workshops, equip you with the tools required to go back to your business and make an immediate impact.

This summer we shall be visiting a total of six cities with the Insite event - starting in Bristol on the 16th August, then London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and finally Dublin in mid-October.

And, thanks to generous sponsorship by Google (Gold), Cybersource and the FOEB (Silver), we are able to keep the cost to a minimum - only £49 + VAT per person for a full 8-hour day of learning! I think you’ll agree this represents tremendous value-for-money - in fact, as we’re limiting places to 25 delegates per event, we expect all six events to be oversubscribed. So if you’re interested in taking your online business to the next level this Christmas, be sure to sign up straight away and reserve your place.

Here’s a link to the official Insite website where you can see more details on the agenda and register to attend. Hey, why not bring someone else from your company as well so you can bounce ideas off each other during the day and take action when you’re back in the office?

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Searching for the perfect checkout is like the search for the Holy Grail, except that the latter was probably more fun with adventures in far-away countries, on horse back and with sharp objects at your disposal. Every online retailer has a different checkout flow with most of them too long, confusing and at times even unreliable. A new study study by the UK’s e-Consultancy group now indicates that checkout abandonment rates could be as high as 80% as a result of poor usability (here’s a good interview with the author Dr. Mike Baster on checkout best practices). That can’t be good for business.

Google Checkout’s arrival last year raised the profile of checkout and its significance for conversions and sales (with Yahoo! replicating the search tie-in) but it also set a new bar for checkout simplicity and ease-of-use for buyers. Recently PayPal has turned up the heat with its PayPal Express Checkout product that doesn’t outright replace the entire checkout but conveniently lands the buyer on the retailer’s “complete your checkout” page (for more interesting reading check out last week’s Internet Retailer’s report on third-party checkout adoption rates among the leading online retailers). And before you ask, yes, ChannelAdvisor supports today Google Checkout and will have good news shortly for retailers looking to add PayPal Express Checkout as an option for buyers.

So what are buyers looking for in a checkout (and what will positively impact cart abandonment rates)? Here’s my unscientific list:

• Security & Trust – Above all I’d like to make sure that my payment information doesn’t end up in Madagascar. I heard it’s a nice country and all, but the data is for you Mr. Merchant and nobody else. That’s no big deal if you’re a brand-name merchant since I trust that the thousands of shoppers before me were okay (Google didn’t report anything on you losing credit card data), but it’s a little bit of a challenge if you’re new to me. May simply be a small token of safety similar to what Global Golf has done with its Hacker Safe feature at the very top of the screen.

• Speed – Make it fast. Very fast. I have already spent time selecting the right product, let’s just get it over with and don’t give me any opportunity to get confused and quit. Want to build a relationship with me? Follow-up on the order to make sure I got it, give me a chance to rate the transaction and then allow me to opt-in to a newsletter (call out that you’ll be sending out promotions and not product announcements — if there’s no good reason I won’t do it). I bought a good bag recently at eBags and was excited when I was asked to rate the deal, glad you care.

• Simplicity – Speaking of confusion, I don’t really care to subscribe to any email lists, financing offers, the same product in different colors or a wishlist during checkout. Every time I buy something at a site I end up automatically getting a newsletter and that counts against you, Mr. Loyalty Builder. Remember, the more you hit me over the head with the size and the color of the checkout button, the better. I don’t want to guess what I need to do to pay you right now (before I change my mind).

• Personalization – And please, please, please: recognize me. I hate data entry. Point and click. Have a guest checkout for shoppers that have privacy concerns. I’d rather register (IF you have other products I am interested in) so that next time I just have to indicate “yeah, ship it to me” and get back to my show. Amazon’s One-Click works for a reason.

• Options – And while I may like the payment options you have (doesn’t everyone accept credit cards these days?), it’s important that you offer me some progressive checkout solutions before I even get into the weeds of your marketing maze. Yes, I am talking about Google Checkout, PayPal Express Checkout and Bill Me Later. A good number of leading eTailers are already offering this (Starbucks is a good example of how this can be done) so get on the same page. In a perfect world I’d also like for you to default to my preferred checkout method.

Whew, that felt good.

And although I am a big fan of Google Checkout, I have recently found a checkout that beats hands-down anything I have ever used. Wait, it wasn’t even me. My son, a new Webkinz addict, showed me a few days ago what he can buy in this virtual world and I was stunned. Here’s a checkout that doesn’t ask how I want to pay for the product (use what I always use unless I object) or how it should be shipped.

Now where am I going to put my new virtual trampoline?

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Google announced today a new promotion that entitles online retailers to FedEx discounts if they use Google Checkout (on top of the free payment processing until 2008!):

1. Sign up for Google Checkout by clicking the “sign up now” button below.
2. To sign up for your FedEx discounts, call 1-800-475-6708 or go to: http://enrolladvantage.fedex.com/3885/ and enter pass code P6V0KG01.
3. Complete at least one sale through Google Checkout within 30 days and let the savings begin!

More information can be found on the Google promotion page.

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