Kickstarter has announced that it will be dropping Amazon Payments for its core funding system.
The popular crowdfunded project website has used Amazon Payments to handle its backer contributions since it started back in 2009, but now it’s going a different way.
In a blog post entitled “Making Payments Easier for Creators and Backers,” the Kickstarter team has revealed that it is ditching Amazon Payments after the online retail giant opted to discontinue the payments product it had been using.
In place of Amazon Payments, Kickstarter is turning to Stripe to handle its project funding. The company already processes payments for the likes of Facebook and Twitter, so Kickstarter users will be in good hands.
As a side effect of this move, the whole funding process should be made far easier for project creators and backers alike.
Creators won’t need to set up an Amazon Payments business account to secure funding. All they will need with Stripe is their bank account details. It’s the difference in set-up time between a few days for Amazon Payments and a few minutes for Stripe.
Backers, meanwhile, will benefit from a streamlined checkout process, with no irritating redirecting or separate log-ins. The process has effectively been halved in terms of required steps, and it all takes place right on the Kickstarter website itself.
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There’s to be no change to Kickstarter’s fees, either – it will still apply the usual five percent fee on total funds, while Stripe will apply its own credit card processing fees of around three to five percent.
Kickstarter anticipates that it will have fully transitioned to Stripe by next week.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
