This Could Mean Big Things for Amazon's Payment Service
Amazon was initially met with skepticism when it launched its new payment service in October, but new data shows why it still has promise.
Back in October, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) launched its new "Login and Pay With Amazon" service, which effectively allows customers of third-party websites to more easily process electronic payments using their existing Amazon credentials.
Given the roughly 215 million active user accounts maintained by Amazon, the payment service boasts massive potential to positively affect the online retail behemoth's bottom line. But not everyone was convinced, especially since many of the sites targeted for the service are arguably competitors with Amazon.
But earlier this week, Amazon reminded us of its massive Marketplace Sellers platform, a community of more than 2 million businesses of all sizes that sells billions of dollars' worth of products on Amazon.com each year. In fact, Amazon says, its number of active Marketplace sellers rose by more than 65% in 2013.
According to the Fool's Steve Symington in the following video, that goes to show Amazon has no intention of simply leaving smaller businesses in the dust as it continues to grow. What's more, this also indicates a significant number of smaller retailers -- many of which also operate their own websites and brick-and-mortar locations -- are more than happy to embrace Amazon's world-class infrastructure.
To hear Steve's full take on why this could portend good things for Amazon's payment service going forward, check out the video.