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Amazon's new PayPhrase technology promises to speed up the buying process on Amazon. But it isn't only for Amazon. It also works for Amazon partner sites DKNY, Jockey, Patagonia, Buy.com, and J&R Electronics. I already had One-Click buying enabled on Amazon, and using PayPhrase on Amazon isn't much different. Instead of buying with the One-Click button, you buy with the PayPhrase button, and then enter a PIN to go with the PayPhrase. Yet for some, the speeding up of the transaction seems to be the attractive feature of the new technology, as this tweet from @sarahkay shows.
To me, the feature of PayPhrase that may make waves in the online buying world is with third-party sites. PayPhrases can be used for express checkout from sites like Buy.com and then confirmed by entering a PIN. I signed up for PayPhrase at Amazon and then went shopping at buy.com. Here's what I saw: a "Checkout With Amazon" button right under the normal "Add to Cart" button.
Since I don't have an account already established at buy.com and have never given them my credit card info and all the other goodies they need to know to ship you something, here's where using my Amazon PayPhrase could save some time.
As I mentioned, I already have an account at Amazon, so setting up PayPhrase took me only about 3 minutes. Here's how the process goes. I clicked the PayPhrase link on the home page to find out more about it. A popup window explains what it is and suggests a pre-assigned phrase for me.
I clicked the "Create your PayPhrase" button. The Choose Phrase page opened. My pre-assigned phrase was filled in, but I choose a new one of my own. Notice the small optional settings checkbox near the bottom? You can select that and enter spending limits, approvals and allowances.
The next step is to create a PIN.
Once you have a phrase and PIN, you need to sign in to Amazon. If this were a new account, you would have to fill in all your information, but for a recurring customer like myself it was a quick process.
Okay, then. You are all ready to go shopping with your new PayPhrase. I checked out the iPod Touch offers just to see what I would find on the page now that I had my PayPhrase. Sure enough, under the box where I normally would click one-click checkout (which I can still use) I saw this button. My PayPhrase was filled in—I blanked it out here—but even if you knew it, you'd still have to know my PIN to buy something.
A benefit of PayPhrase for the password overloaded is that, at least for the Amazon partner sites that use it, you don't need to remember any new passwords, only your PIN. Another is that you can buy quickly at sites where you don't already have an account.
A four digit PIN is easier to crack than an 8 digit password with a mix of numbers and letters and upper and lower case. When Consumerist asked their readers if they would use the new PayPhrase, the security issue and other topics were brought up in the comments. An article at TechCrunch asks, Amazon Launches PayPhrase — Will It Be Easy To Game?
Sarah Perez from ReadWriteWeb differs with me on the comparison to One-Click. In Amazon Speeds Checkout with New PayPhrase Techology, she said,
Although not designed to replace 1-Click, the new PayPhrase system is even easier to use and more flexible. Using this system, shoppers don't have to be signed in to the site with an Amazon account as is necessary with 1-Click. That saves an extra step and could lead to more impulse buys as there's no "cooling down" time, however brief, between seeing something you want to purchase and then finalizing the transaction.
I'll give Sarah points for the warning against impulse buying, but I don't think the speed of a purchase on Amazon itself is the real importance of Amazon's PayPhrase techology. I think it's the aforementioned fast purchase from affiliated sites. And, Sarah points to the fact that this new technology lends itself to fast purchases on mobile devices. See her article Amazon announces Mobile Payments Service. That's big news. Instant purchases
