If you want to buy a product or service on mobile, you will have many options for making the payment. Even live roulette apps support a myriad of payment methods and provide users with good flexibility & variety. E-commerce platforms offer more: they even have their own unique options. Here we will list and compare the payment methods supported by the most popular e-commerce apps as of 2024.
1. Amazon
Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce platform, offers the following payment options to its users on its mobile app:
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- Credit and Debit Cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB, UnionPay, Diner’s Club
- Amazon Pay: You can think of this as a wallet. You can add a payment method (for example, your credit card) to your Amazon Pay account and use it on another site that allows you to pay with this option.
- Amazon Store Card: It requires credit approval and prime membership. Not to be confused with gift cards: this is designed as a kind of credit card and allows you to make equal monthly payments.
- Gift Cards and Vouchers: Traditional gift cards and voucher codes. You can buy them at any retail store.
- Pay by Invioce: An option that allows you to pay not immediately, but when you receive the invoice.
Amazon does not yet support cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but considering the existence of services such as "Amazon Managed Blockchain (AMB) Access", crypto support may be provided in the near future.
2. eBay
eBay is one of the largest global marketplaces for new and used goods and offers the following payment options:
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- Credit and Debit Cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover
- PayPal: For a long time, PayPal was eBay's official payment method, and payments with almost any other option were processed using the PayPal infrastructure. The platform now has its own infrastructure called "managed systems", but PayPal is still supported as an option.
- Apple Pay & Google Pay: The best options for mobile users. You can easily pay with these mobile wallets without having to share your financial information.
- Gift Cards and Vouchers: They are no different from traditional gift cards and voucher codes. You can buy them from many different sources.
- Buy Now Pay Later: An option offered via a partnership with Klarna and Afterpay. It allows you to pay not immediately but later and in monthly instalments.
PayPal's departure from eBay didn't disrupt payments: the platform has partnered with Adyen to offer almost the same options. Adyen is the name of the payment infrastructure also used by Etsy and Uber.
3. Shopify
You can find the following payment methods on Shopify, the e-commerce platform preferred by small and medium-sized businesses:
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- Credit and Debit Cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover
- PayPal: You can also use this popular electronic wallet on Shopify.
- Mobile Wallets: Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay. Once again, these would be the most ideal options for mobile users.
- Cryptocurrencies: This option must be offered by the merchant, it is not among the default payment methods of the platform.
- Buy Now Pay Later: It's an option offered by third parties like Affirm and Afterpay. It needs to be supported by the merchant, it's not one of Shopify's default methods.
The difference between Shopify and other platforms is that merchants can also offer their own custom payment options. So, an option that one merchant doesn't support may still be available at another merchant. This flexibility will be useful for mobile users.
4. Alibaba
Albaba is China's largest e-commerce platform and supports the following options for secure & fast payments:
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- Credit and Debit Cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Union Pay, JCB
- AliPay: This is the name of the platform's own digital wallet, and it works just like AmazonPay.
- Wire Transfers: For large transfers, you can use traditional banking.
- Western Union: This is not a common payment method, but Alibaba also serves third world countries, where most popular options are not available.
Alibaba is also expected to start supporting cryptocurrencies in the near future, but no official announcement has yet been made.
