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Online shopping is still at the very beginning in Peru. One of the reasons for this is that cash payments still dominate small retail transactions in the country and online retailers often only accept cashless payment options which many Peruvian still don’t have access to.
In Latin America 72% of smaller purchases are still made in cash (in the US for example 60% of cash payments under $10 were made in cash, compared to 20 percent of in-person transactions for $25 or more).
So Amazon.com, one of the big three global online retailers, with the collaboration of Western Union, a leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement, now offers a new payment option called Amazon PayCode initially in 10 countries – Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.
Amazon PayCode enables customers who prefer to pay in cash or who do not have access to international credit cards or debit cards to shop Amazon.com’s vast product selection and make the actual payment in local currency at participating Western Union branches which process the complex foreign exchange, settlement and money movement requirements for international e-commerce transactions.
Peruvian customers can now shop on Amazon.com and select PayCode on the checkout page. They then will be sent a code, along with instructions on how to pay in person at a participating Western Union® agent location.
The move by Western Union and Amazon will provide greater access to online goods for customers who have largely been excluded from e-commerce shopping due to lack of accepted payment methods.
Khalid Fellahi, SVP and General Manager of Western Union Digital said, “We’re helping to unlock access to Amazon.com for customers who need and want items that can only be found online in many parts of the world”.
And Ben Volk, Director, Payment Acceptance and Experience at Amazon informed, “Amazon is committed to enabling customers anywhere in the world to shop on Amazon.com, and a big part of that is to allow customers to pay for their cross-border online purchases in a way that is most convenient for them. Amazon PayCode leverages the reach of Western Union to make cross-border online shopping a reliable and convenient experience for customers who do not have access to international credit cards, or prefer to pay in cash.”
Detailed information on using Amazon PayCode can be found on the Western Union Peru website.
Source: businesswire.com
