Without much fanfare, Amazon is joining the mobile wallet craze with an app of its own. Available in beta for Android devices, the application isn’t really feature rich and is rather released to gather some initial feedback and chart the road ahead for the world’s largest online retailer. That said, I really think Amazon’s effort has more chance to succeed that similar services offered by other companies, Google included.
You see, people are used to spending money on Amazon and getting their Wallet app seems like a logical step forward. Here’s what the app description says about it:
Use the Amazon Wallet app to simplify your shopping trips, and never lose another gift card or rewards membership number. Scan or type your gift cards, loyalty cards and membership cards to your Amazon Wallet to reduce the clutter in your leather wallet or purse. Wherever you are, the information you need is easily available as a barcode, QR code, text or image. For supported merchants, check the balance of your stored gift cards. Information saved in your Amazon Wallet is stored securely in the Amazon cloud. In addition, your Amazon Wallet cards can be viewed and edited at Amazon.com/wallet, where you will also find the credit cards, bank accounts, and other payment methods saved in your Amazon account.
As a beta product, it still needs some polishing, but we’re sure Amazon knows what it’s doing and that soon enough, they’ll be out with a product every Amazon, or at very least every Prime user will want to rely on. Moreover, we’re expecting an array of new features to be added in due course, yet again confirming why Amazon means shopping for millions of users all around the planet…
Amazon Wallet (FREE) [Google Play Store]