Less than two months after Amazon introduced its Fire phone, the mega-retailer has continued its push into the hardware game with a credit card reader.
Amazon Local Register is Amazon’s new secure card reader that allows users to simply plug a dongle into a smartphone or tablet, download an app and begin accepting credit card payments. Local Register is compatible with iOS 7 phones and tablets, Kindle Fire hardware and “select” Android handsets, with support for the aforementioned Fire phone coming soon.
The Amazon Local Register dongle is now available for purchase with a price tag of $10. Amazon notes that it will credit your first $10 in processing fees after purchase. Additionally, the retailer is offering a special deal for folks that purchase a dongle and register for an Amazon Payments account before October 31: those that do will receive a 1.75 percent card swipe fee until January 1, 2016. Anyone that signs up after the promo period will get a rate of 2.5 percent. To compare, Square charges a per swipe fee of 2.75 percent for its card reader.
While we haven’t yet spent any time with Amazon Local Register, the combination of Amazon’s secure payment service, customer support, app features and accessory ecosystem make it seem like an appealing option for anyone that needs to accept payments on a regular basis. That promotional per swipe fee isn’t to shabby, either.
If you’d like another look at Amazon Local Register before clicking that “Add to cart” button, you can view Amazon’s brief promo video above.
Via Amazon
