Alexa offers a new channel for brands and merchants who want to sell their products and services through their Alexa skills. Today, we are excited to announce Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills is now generally available to UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and France based merchants and developers. With Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills, you can use Amazon’s simple voice purchasing flow to sell goods or services (like event tickets, transportation, flower deliveries, and more). You can now leverage Amazon Pay to earn money with your Alexa skill.

How It Works

If you sell goods or services through an Alexa skill, a customer can now complete the purchase without having to leave the voice experience to enter credit card or shipping address details. A merchant first registers with Amazon Pay and then links their Amazon Pay account with their Alexa skill in Seller Central. Amazon Pay integrates with existing CRM and order management solutions, so merchants can manage their sales as part of the existing process.

For customers, the experience is simple. With Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills, customers can pay for goods and services within the skill using the information already in their Amazon account—without needing to remember their username and password.

How Brands Are Using Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills

In the UK, Virgin Trains launched commerce in their Alexa skill early this year by enabling customers to purchase their train tickets using Amazon Pay. For example, Virgin Train customers can just ask Alexa for train schedules and with Amazon Pay complete their purchase conveniently, without needing additional payment information. The biggest impact that voice ordering has for customers is the time it takes to make a booking, which is 66% less than online. According to John Sullivan, CIO of Virgin Trains “From finding train times or booking your tickets through voice, we want to make every journey with Virgin Trains amazing, and our collaboration with Amazon is a great example of this commitment to putting the customer first.”

In the US, TGI Fridays and 1800 Flowers have already created Alexa skills leveraging these new capabilities. TGIF is enabling customers to place orders and reservations through their Alexa skill with Amazon Pay. Just ask "Alexa, open Fridays" to start the process, and with Amazon Pay customers can complete their orders quickly and easily, with the payment information already stored in the Amazon account. 1800 Flowers added Amazon Pay to their Alexa Skill in early 2018, and initial results are promising. Steve Wilson, head of digital at 1800 Flowers, said, “Previously, very few customers who used our skill for the first time ended up buying flowers after they linked to an existing 1800 Flowers account or created a new one. Once we enabled Amazon Pay for our skill, we saw a significant increase in customers completing the order using Amazon Pay. We are also seeing a 20% increase in repeat customers making purchases.” Wilson sees the combination of Alexa and Amazon Pay as an opportunity for businesses who might be seeing slow sales on Alexa alone.  “It’s all about a good CX. Make the purchase experience seamless and your users will come. Amazon Pay really helps on Alexa.”

Other Ways to Make Money with Alexa Skills

Make Money through Alexa Developer Rewards: With Alexa Developer Rewards, you can make money for eligible skills that drive some of the highest customer engagement. Skills in eligible categories are automatically considered for the program each month. We will notify you if your skill qualifies. Learn more

Get Started Today

For more information, visit the Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills websites in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria or France.