Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer and it sells nearly everything. It’s also host to 1 of the world’s largest mobile platforms with its Kindle Fire devices and Amazon Appstore for Android. Now the retailer is combining the 2.
Amazon announced today the launch of the Mobile Associates API. It’s a brand new tool that enables developers to integrate Amazon’s retail store into their mobile apps. In other words, a developer could sell physical items via in-app purchases, and the sale of these physical items will be handled by Amazon’s retail operation.
“Developers now be capable of create an excellent deeper connection between their app and the goods customers value and buy through Amazon.com,” said Mike George, Vp of Amazon Appstore, Games and Cloud Drive. “Imagine a developer of a nutrition and fitness app can now offer their customers the power to buy vitamins, supplements and fitness gear in the app, directly from Amazon.com. It offers the client a more relevant experience and gives the developer with a brand new income.”
It’s noted that the API can do greater than just sell physical items in apps. It’ll even be used to bundle digital and physical purchases. Amazon uses the instance of somebody buying a board game and receiving the digital version of an identical board game at no cost.
The API is usually getting used by mobile games which are tied into popular brands, like Marvel. Animoca, developer of Thor: Lord of Storms, integrated the API in order that users could purchase Thor toys from inside the app and earn in-app currency for doing so. This also nets the developer a sales commission from Amazon.
In short, the Mobile Associates API is a fairly large deal. Amazon is the sole mobile platform holder that can try this, and I’m surprised it took the corporate this long to integrate its retail operation into its mobile operation.
If you’re a developer and end up eager about the Mobile Associates API, you are able to learn more about it here. The API isn’t exclusive to the Amazon Appstore either as any Google Play app can integrate it to boot.
[Image: AmazonAppDistro/YouTube]