Mobile App That Allows People to Easily Shop on Amazon with Bitcoin

Amazon is the world’s largest online store with shipping capabilities of all over the United States. Although Amazon itself still does not allows Bitcoin in their transactions, third party applications like the purse.io Android and IOS apps do.

One could imagine the ease with which Amazon transactions can be easily completed using Bitcoin. With the capabilities of Bitcoin, buyers would be able to pay for goods on Amazon from virtually anywhere in the world. Shipping arrangements can later be made with other third party shipping companies for transporting the products across the world.

Amazon still does not accept Bitcoin directly for the millions of commodities which are purchased from the site on a daily basis. Purse.io has developed a system where one user creates an order on Amazon, then he sends it to another Purse.io user who has a debit card and wants to buy Bitcoins. On the next step, the first user sends Bitcoins to a second user, and he pays for the goods on Amazon with his card in exchange for Bitcoins from the first user.

Moreover, the feature “Buy Now” by Purse.io allows its users to search for any item on Amazon and save 5% instantly using bitcoin.

How will this new development change the way people pay for goods on Amazon?

People always prefer better and easier ways of getting things done. Amazon payments, to date, are still done via credit cards and it is not very convenient for non-credit card holders or for people living outside of the United states. Coinidol.com spoke to Kent Hamilton, founder at Roadtoonlineriches, a platform that provides business education to would-be online entrepreneurs, on how bitcoin payments will change the way goods are paid for on amazon. He commented:

“I believe there are a lot of people who still don't know about, understand or trust bitcoin. It is still in this shadowy light of mostly technical savvy and underworld types using bitcoin. I think Amazon may help change that perception some but it will take a long while I believe such like the PayPal path bet even harder because bitcoin value changes, unlike PayPal just being a gateway to your current bank account.There will need to be a lot more bitcoin education and make it easy for users to put money in and take it out of bitcoin for it to make much impact.”

Which other companies provides a similar service to that of purse.io?

Many large-scale and medium-scale online retailers recently emerged, covering a good percentage of the consumer community across the world. Bitcoin, the biggest and fastest growing cryptocurrency, still faces some setbacks to acceptance by these retailers. Roger Gu, co-founder at Emburse, a company that provides easy corporate expense management services and former director of partnership at Coinbase, commented on similar companies that accept bitcoins at their retail stores. He wrote on Quora:

“While companies like Overstock, Newegg, TigerDirect have/will accept Bitcoin for purposes of gaining publicity, another primary reason  is to reduce "cart abandonment," that is, adding an item, then realizing, eh, I'm too lazy to fill out my CC info, so I'll buy it later/elsewhere. Using bitcoins (especially with Coinbase's 2 click checkout) simplifies the checkout process. Amazon doesn't have this problem with their millions of wallets and "One-Click" checkout. Amazon knows where I've lived for the past 5 years and all my CCs.” 

Purse.io has recently announced its partnership with Switzerland-based exchange/gateway Bity.com, that serves the majority of users in Switzerland, France and Germany and accepts both Swiss Franc and Euro. This partnership will allow Purse.io to increase the number of on-ramps for individuals looking to purchase bitcoin in order to spend on their service.