Amazon wants a piece of the growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) trend. The world’s largest online marketplace is pleased with its “Buy with Prime” feature, which has been available to U.S. third-party sellers for several months. So satisfied, in fact, that the company is now even teaming up with Shopify to establish the new function across an even broader market.
The fact that Amazon and Shopify are cooperating is at first surprising. After all, the provider of the popular e-commerce platform had recently been rather opposed to Amazon’s new function, advising merchants against using it with reference to its terms of use and security concerns. After all, “Buy with Prime” was generally understood by the market as Amazon’s counterattack on the growing market power of its competitor Shopify, whose platform had given the D2C trend (i.e., without intermediaries) a real boost in the first place. Shopify users who wanted to use “Buy with Prime” in spite of everything had previously had to do this outside the administration of their Shopify store and thus keep an eye on two systems. Hence, now the turnaround.
Competitors become partners
According to the announcement made by the two companies at the end of August, this is precisely what is to be enabled: The use of Amazon services and administration or control of the order processes carried out via them within the Shopify universe. This is to be possible via a specially developed app, which will soon be available for download in the Shopify app store and can be integrated into the checkout process of the stores.
As the Canada-based company describes, this will give Shopify merchants “for the first time, the ability to offer their products to Prime members on Shopify while still maintaining 100 percent control of their brand and customer data in the Shopify admin area.”
“Buy with Prime” is designed to allow online stores to handle storage, delivery and returns, as well as the payment process through Amazon. It can thus be seen as an extension of the previous “Checkout by Amazon” and “Amazon Pay” programs, according to movesell.de.
Win-win-win for Amazon, Shopify and the users?
If you ignore the fact that “Buy with Prime” is initially only available to users and third-party providers from the United States, the deal could actually work out for everyone involved: After all, this is an elegant way for Amazon to get a foot in the door, or rather in the business, of its previous competitor Shopify, while at the same time gaining access to new customer groups.
Shopify, on the other hand, had just sold its logistics division Shopify Logistics, including the e-commerce fulfillment service provider Deliverr acquired just the year before, to Flexport in May – where, however, the company also holds shares. The number of employees was reduced by 20 percent as a result of the sale – at the same time, Shopify was said to be able to concentrate more on its actual “mission”, its core business.
Exciting from today’s perspective: Since then, Shopify has no longer been responsible for its own logistics services, but it should continue to profit from its participation in Flexport. The integration of Amazon’s “Buy with Prime” function could also have a different effect, because Amazon and the processes behind it have been familiar to customers for years – both enjoy a high level of trust among the population. The move to now open up more to Amazon as Shopify and embrace this trust advantage could pay off.
Thirdly, Shopify users and the customers of the many stores will probably benefit the most in the end – according to Statista, there are now almost 71,200 stores in Germany alone as of July 2023, and even more than one million in the USA! While the providers of Shopify stores can now or will in future offer their customers even more options for processing their orders and payment transactions and thus broaden their range, the customers themselves will also benefit from the simplified processes.
The stock markets are also pleased
The stock markets have also reacted positively to the announcement by Amazon and Shopify. At the beginning of September, both the Shopify and Amazon shares had recorded significant jumps of just under 11 and a good 2 percent respectively.
