There’s a bigger chance that a payment to Amazon will be processed using Stripe as a result of a new agreement.
The news: Amazon and Stripe are expanding a long-standing partnership. This will grow the use of Stripe’s payments procession technology for Amazon products and services. The companies called it a “new chapter” for a relationship that began more than a decade ago, and a partnership that started when Amazon used Stripe to support shopping holiday purchases on Prime Day and Black Friday in 2017.
What’s Stripe? While Amazon is well-known in ecommerce, Stripe is also an important player, even if its name doesn’t show up on purchases. The company’s software and APIs help businesses process payments in a variety of different ways, including individual purchases at online and offline retailers, subscriptions and marketplaces. It also provides a host of tools around payments, from invoices to financing. It's one of the companies at the infrastructure layer of modern commerce, with technology used in purchases from many brands and retailers.
What’s in the agreement? The companies will grow their work together in the following ways:
Stripe will become the strategic payments partner for Amazon in the U.S., Europe and Canada. The fintech company will process “a significant portion" of the payments for purchases made on Amazon Prime, Audible, Kindle, Amazon Pay, Buy With Prime and more.
“Stripe has been a trusted partner, helping accelerate our business at every turn,” said Max Bardon, VP of payments at Amazon. “In particular, we value Stripe’s reliability. Even during peak days like Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, Stripe delivers industry-leading uptime. We appreciate Stripe’s relentless commitment to putting users first.”
Amazon Web Services, which is Amazon’s cloud division, will get more use from Stripe. This will allow the company to access AWS tools such as Graviton for data processing, and Nitro enclaves for data security.
“We couldn’t run without AWS—and we wouldn’t want to,” said David Singleton, chief technology officer of Stripe. “AWS is our customers’ first choice. The platform gives Stripe enormous developer leverage, which we then deploy in service of our users.”
What it means for ecommerce
Giants work together: The partnership brings together two of the tech companies that virtually run the internet economy. It signals the importance of payments infrastructure at a time when an expanding number of options for consumers and increasing competition among ecommerce marketplaces is making the transactional environment more complex.
Both had layoffs: The companies are also both among the wave of tech firms to recently make layoffs. Amazon started a round of job cuts that will eventually affect 18,000 roles last week. In December, Stripe laid off 14% of its workforce, or 1,100 employees. Both companies referenced overhiring during the pandemic as compared to economic realities that followed reopening and the economic pullback. Is partnership one way of doing more with fewer people?
AWS boost: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud leader, and a profit juggernaut for Amazon. Expanding work with a well-known technology company such as Stripe allows it to demonstrate how it partners and even grows with leading internet companies. This partnership also ties together AWS with Amazon’s commerce business. While the companies are under one roof, the connection is rarely as obvious as it is here.
