Amazon (AMZN) is expanding its Shop Direct program that allows customers to shop and buy products on other online stores that are not available in the Amazon marketplace.
Through third-party feeds Feedonomics, Salsify, and CEDCommerce that enable access to merchants’ inventory in real time, Amazon (AMZN) will now support third-party product feeds and can direct shoppers to another merchant’s website through search results or Amazon’s own Rufus shopping assistant.
Shoppers can either complete the purchase on the merchant’s site though the Shop Direct feature, or have Amazon (AMZN) complete the purchse with the Buy for Me feature. Amazon’s AI agent handles the entire purchase process on the customer’s behalf, including all required shipping and payment information.
Shop Direct now includes over 100M products from more than 400K merchants.
While Amazon (AMZN) does not get a fee for either a Shop Direct order or referral fee for Buy for Me purchases, by accessing a competitor’s inventory, Amazon (AMZN) can glean valuable information as to which products are in high demand and make the Amazon (AMZN) marketplace a starting point for all product searches.