It is not uncommon for Amazon to launch new products that subsequently become widely successful; one area where Amazon pulled back was in the payments space; in 2014 Amazon went head to head with Square and according to Jim McKelvey who started the company with Jack Dorsey it was terrifying; Amazon created a very similar card reader and offered it at a fraction of Square’s offering; Amazon’s promotional price was 1.75% per transaction which went up to 2.5%; at the time Square charges 2.75%; however in this case Square won out and after a year Amazon stopped making the product altogether; their existing customers were mailed a Square card reader; CNN shares more about how this story played out. CNN
