The retail giant wants to be a bigger part of all your spending habits.
Amazon may already be the go-to for online shopping, but the retail giant looks like it wants to be a bigger part of your spending habits — even when shopping offline.
Amazon has begun rolling out Amazon Pay Places, a new feature that allows Amazon customers to make and purchase orders at brick-and-mortar establishments, according to TechCrunch .
The system is sort of an extension of Amazon Pay, a system akin to PayPal that allows online retailers to accept payments though customers’ Amazon accounts.
Rather than internet stores, however, Pay Places would use the customer’s payment credentials at real-life locations, similar to mobile payment services like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay .
Though available starting today, Amazon’s new payment system is still in its relative infancy.
At the time of writing, ordering via Amazon Pay Places is only available at select, US-based TGI Friday’s restaurants in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D. C., Richmond, Virginia and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
As for if (or more likely, when) Amazon expands its new feature out to more businesses, we’ll just have to wait and see. That said, the move to physical stores shouldn’t surprise many — the company’s bold $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods last month is no small indication that Amazon wants to be just as much an in-person shopping hub as it is online.
