Amazon’s Project Santos Developing SMB POS to Rival Shopify, PayPal

Amazon’s crew at Project Santos is developing an innovative point-of-sale (POS) solution for third-party retailers that is intended to compete with Shopify, PayPal, and others, Business Insider (BI) reported, citing an internal Amazon document the news outlet reviewed.

The proposed POS can reportedly process transactions online and in physical stores and has the technological chops to provide data analytics for inventory and other business functions, per the internal document. The system also can offer Amazon checkout options, and links to the company’s Prime services, palm identification system, and Flex delivery.

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“This will allow our small business (SMB) customers to unify their online and offline channel management including inventory, offer Amazon One for contactless recognition and payment, and offer a customizable loyalty program that can utilize Prime benefits,” according to the document, per BI.

Project Santos was launched by Amazon last year to specifically brainstorm innovations to compete against the Canadian POS giant Shopify, the Wall Street Journal and others reported last December.

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Plans for the upcoming POS solution could signal that Amazon is looking to pull more small- and medium-sized (SMBs) businesses to its eCommerce space as it loses some market share to Shopify and other direct-to-consumer portals. According to data from Grand View Research, the global POS space was worth $9.26 billion in 2020, and forecasted to hit $19.56 billion in seven years.

If Amazon’s proposed POS solution is rolled out, it will go toe-to-toe with numerous companies aside from Shopify that offer their own checkout tools, such as PayPal, Square, and Fiserv’s First Data.

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“We believe this offering lets Amazon to do the heavy lifting of order placement and fulfillment at a rate that is more affordable than other competitors, thus allowing SMBs to focus on their product development and growth,” read the internal document.