Amazon is the biggest online marketplace and “cathedral of capitalism.” They have over a million customers and over a billion transactions every year. PayPal is also a global company with millions of customers and a presence on or in millions of stores and businesses. Both are important for making online payments and shopping at the biggest online store. Since one is a store and the other is a way of payment, does Amazon accept PayPal? Even though the official answer is “no,” there are still ways to use your PayPal account on Amazon if you know where to glimpse.
Why does Amazon not accept PayPal?
There are online stores and markets. It is the largest online payment platform in the world. So why wouldn’t PayPal want to work with Amazon? The answer goes back to where PayPal came from. PayPal started in 1998, and in 2002, it became a part of eBay. It was a part of eBay until 2014 when it became a separate company. Most of that time, all of PayPal’s profits went to eBay, which is in direct competition with Amazon’s online business. Amazon started as an online bookstore, but when it started offering almost everything in the real world, eBay became one of its biggest online competitors. So, even though Amazon is no longer part of eBay, it still doesn’t accept PayPal as a payment method.
The other part of the explanation is that Amazon operates its payment platform, Amazon Pay. This platform is like PayPal but is much more limited in what it can do. It is mostly used to buy things from Amazon, and even though it can be used outside of Amazon, it isn’t widely accepted yet. In addition, Amazon Pay is a direct competitor of PayPal, and all of Amazon Pay’s profits go back to Amazon. So why would Amazon accept payment from a service that competes with them?
No matter how big PayPal is now, not working with it doesn’t hurt Amazon.
How to use PayPal to pay for Amazon purchases
Even though Amazon doesn’t accept PayPal payments officially, there are still ways to use any amount you might have on the Amazon website. For instance, you can purchase Amazon gift cards with a PayPal gift card, a debit card, or a third-party seller.
Use gift cards
It sells a variety of gift cards that you can pay for with the platform itself. There are a lot of different sorts of cards, including ones from Apple, Best Buy, GameStop, Uber, Applebee’s, Airbnb, and many more. One of the cards that PayPal used to sell was an Amazon gift card. This made it easy for you to purchase digital currency from Amazon through PayPal’s store. PayPal even sells gift cards at a discount occasionally, making it easy to get around Amazon’s limited payment choices and save some cash.
Unfortunately, PayPal and Amazon no longer work together on these sales. You can’t buy Amazon gift cards online at PayPal’s store, which is a big bummer. The good report is you don’t have to buy a gift card from It directly if you don’t want to. You can also buy them on websites that sell only those things. When you buy cards from them, they often sell them cheaply or offer discounts or other deals. There are many websites like Gyft and eGifter that sell gift cards. Like buying directly, these websites buy large amounts of gift cards from big stores and sell them to you.
Lastly, it’s important to note that PayPal is still the usual payment method on eBay, where you can often buy a wide range of gift cards. There’s always a chance that these cards are separate from what they seem to be, so make sure to spend close attention to the ratings and background of the seller.
Use a PayPal debit card
The bank card from PayPal is called the PayPal Cash Card, and it works the same way as any other card. Mastercard runs it and can be used wherever Mastercard is accepted, which is millions of places around the world, including Amazon. As with PayPal, there are no fees to start using the card or monthly and inactive fees. Moving money from your paycheck with direct deposit or from your bank account is also free and easy. There are only real fees when you use the PayPal app or cash to transfer money to the card. For most people, using their current balance or loading cash from their bank account is free and easy.
Apply for the card, and when it comes, add it as a payment plan to your Amazon account. Like many debit cards, It uses the back end of Mastercard, which means it can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted. That includes Amazon, and thankfully, we don’t think that will change soon.
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With a little work, you can finally extend your PayPal payments to Amazon, making it one of the quickest ways to pay for things online. Do you know other ways to buy things from Amazon with PayPal? Do you know of any trustworthy third-party stores where we could buy gift cards? If you do, tell us about it below!