Purse.IO solves the problem of purchasing items from Amazon with Bitcoin. The marketplace helps buyers save up to 25% off Amazon acquisitions by spending bitcoins. With Purse.IO people will be able to buy bitcoins in the most convenient way using a credit card. Considering that the retail giant doesn't yet offer Bitcoin as a payment method, Purse.IO comes to the rescue of customers wanting to buy things from Amazon with Bitcoin.
Additionally, Purse.IO solves the problem of purchasing BTC with a credit card, too. Although you can use Coinbase, the process may seem rather complex for those with little time to spare. Another solution would have been BitPay, who processed more than $100 million in BTC transactions. But Purse.IO wants to be different and offer a service that is unique and particularly tailored to Amazon users.
These two services are merged together in order to offer complete Amazon purchases via Bitcoin. Another great advantage of Purse.IO is the buyer's "discount" feature, which sets a fee for every transaction that it converted from CC to Bitcoin, and vice versa. Co-founder of Purse.IO, Andrew Lee, says:
“I think people that try it and realize they just saved 25% on Amazon are excited about that possibility. For the first time, they’ve been able to do something useful with Bitcoin [rather than just buy and hold].”
How does Purse.IO work?
"Finally a reason to use Bitcoin" states the Purse.IO website and after the sign up process, the platform presents two main options for its customers. They can either spend or purchase bitcoins. If you already have bitcoins and wish to spend them on Amazon, you will have to click on the Spend BTC button, from where you'll be redirected to another page. On that page, you can create a wish list, introduce the item's URL, select shipping preferences, and place the order.
Submitting an order means you're adding it to a list of available orders. Those who want to convert CC to BTC can purchase your preferred item from their Amazon account and ship that item to your address. There's another option where you can purchase bitcoins with a credit card. All you have to do is press "Buy BTC"; you will be redirected to a page with available offers.
What's great about Purse.IO is that the website has a large user base, which means the offers are endless. As soon as you decide on an offer, you can be sure it will be accepted. Now for the most interesting part - a pop-up window with a timer will open up. It will advise you to complete the Amazon purchase, include the order number, and submit. As soon as the buyer ships and receives the item, he notifies Purse.IO; at that point, an escrow account will release the bitcoins. Kent Liu, second co-founder of Purse.IO, describes the whole process as "kind of like an exchange, but with that Amazon layer."
Amazon not ready for BTC
What would happen if Amazon shut Purse.IO down? To some extent, Purse.IO depends on Amazon to make profit; the founders strongly believe that they're actually helping the e-commerce platform. Co-founder of Purse.IO, Andrew Lee says:
“We think we are helping Amazon, they don’t want to take Bitcoin now. They are not ready for it.”
Amazon's marketplace strategy is lagging, although it does have solid third party sellers, Purse.IO certainly expands the options for consumers and Amazon users. However, it will be interesting to see how Purse.IO will be impacted if Amazon decided to become a BTC merchant.
Currently, Purse.IO supports Amazon.com and its international sites: CA, UK, DE, FR, IT, ES, CN, IN, and JP. They charge a 1% fee for the spender getting the discount while the buyers do not pay a fee. Only Bitcoin is currently supported according to their FAQ section but the service is awaiting suggestions from users on which other cryptocurrencies should be integrated in the future.