Comment by joshamania

I don't see why so few people seem to understand that Amazon's key feature is as a payment processing facilitator. People don't shop at Amazon because they have the best deals or have the best logistics or whatever. They shop at Amazon because they can generally find almost anything on there and have it on its way within seconds. People use Amazon because they don't have to think about it. They don't have to get out their credit card or even think about credit/debit cards. It's so damn simple I really don't see how anyone else is really going to compete. The absolute number one reason I don't go to Amazon competitors to buy things is having to deal with payment processing (from a customer standpoint). The only time I don't use Amazon is that rare occasion when Amazon (or one of their "partners") doesn't have what I want.