Amazon reportedly wants its digital wallet in brick-and-mortar stores

Amazon wants its Amazon Pay digital wallet to be accepted in brick-and-mortar stores, and it's offering merchants incentives in order to make that happen, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to sources familiar with the matter, the company is currently focusing on gas stations, restaurants and other merchants that wouldn't see Amazon as a business rival, offering them lower payment-processing fees and marketing services to get them on board. If successful, Amazon would be able to expand its Pay service beyond online transactions, which it's primarily used for now.

Customers can use their Amazon accounts for purchases at the retail giant's brick-and-mortar and Amazon Go stores. And last year, it introduced the ability to place orders with TGI Friday's using the Amazon app. But this push aims to bring Amazon Pay to a much wider selection of merchants.

While other companies like Apple and Samsung have had a bit of a head start when it comes to getting their digital wallets into brick-and-mortar establishments, there's still plenty of room for competitors in the US, where last year, only around 1 percent of in-store transactions were completed with some sort of mobile payment. And according to the Wall Street Journal's sources, Amazon is looking to move in on this market before competition really begins to heat up.