Venmo users unsure what to do with that extra change sitting in their account now have a new option: they can blow it on nonsense from Amazon.
Starting this week, Amazon will officially accept Venmo as a payment option on both its website and mobile app. The agreement, reportedly over a year in the works, comes just weeks before an expected shopping extravaganza for Amazon spurred by Black Friday and the upcoming holidays.
Amazon shoppers looking to use their Venmo account will be able to select it from the “select a payment method” upon checkout. Once they’ve selected Venmo, they’ll then be redirected to the Venmo app where they can choose to allow Amazon to charge Venmo for future purchases. Users can also choose to select Venmo as their default payment method on Amazon for future purchases.
“The ability to pay with Venmo on Amazon continues our ongoing commitment to offer the community more ways to spend, send, receive, and manage their money with Venmo,” PayPal Head of Consumer Doug Bland said in a statement. “We know that the Venmo community of nearly 90 million users value the safety, security, ease, and familiarity that paying with Venmo helps to bring to the checkout experience.”
PayPal acquired Venmo back in 2013.
The new partnership is significant for Amazon because it will grant the e-commerce giant a direct pipeline to Venmo’s loyal, and notably younger user base. Venmo, according to analysis conducted by Insider Intelligence, stands apart as the dominant peer-to-peer payment app in the U.S. and is expected to account for 52.2% of all mobile payment users in 2022. Insider Intelligence cited research from CivicScience showing some 16% of all adults use Venmo as their primary digital wallet. Notably, Venmo is the most popular payment app among teens.
PayPal talked up the supposed strength of Venmo’s users in its press release as well. Citing its own research, PayPal claimed Venmo users shop two times more frequently than average shoppers and are “19% more likely to make repeat purchases.”
Venmo shook up the digital payment space in the 2010s with its social media-esque functionality inevitably resulting in no shortage of cryptic, occasionally hilarious payment captions. Small independent sellers (think thrift store owners and touring bands) helped expand the company into the payment provider space. Now, in recent years, Venmo’s placed more of an emphasis on courting large brands. Today big name retailers like Urban Outfitters, J. Crew, Uber Eats, and Poshmark all accept Venmo as a payment method.
Those are all major brands but Amazon easily eclipses them all. Investors were pleased with the deal with shares of PayPall jolting up 6% following the news according to CNBC.
