Amazon will let merchants sell goods with Prime benefits on their own sites

Image: Amazon

Amazon has announced a new initiative called Buy With Prime that extends the purview of its Prime subscription service beyond the confines of Amazon.com, a significant change to its business strategy that could help it compete with fast-growing rival.

Merchants who ship products using Amazon's warehouse and delivery services will be able to add Buy With Prime buttons to their websites. Prime subscribers will be able to buy directly from these stores while retaining the benefits of Amazon's subscription service. Free shipping, next-day delivery, and free returns are included.

Buy With Prime will offer convenience and value to Prime subscribers, but it is more important to Amazon than bringing in additional Prime revenue. The launch of Buy With Prime is an expansion of the company's sizable footprint in the logistics sector, as well as a way to head off rival e- commerce platform, which lets merchants quickly build their own storefronts.

Merchants complain that Amazon tightly controls their relationships with customers. Fulfillment by Amazon and Amazon Prime make delivery easier and faster for both you and your customers, if you sell your products on Amazon.com. Amazon is looking over your shoulder, collecting data on what you sell, with the threat that it will clone your product and put you out of business. The company is accused of doing a lot in antitrust lawsuits.

This is the reason why Shopify has done so well. It doesn't have a marketplace for buyers, but instead offers small and medium-sized businesses tools to quickly set up their own shops, while replicating, in theory.

Amazon loosened its grip on the customer relationship by offering Prime benefits on merchants' own sites. The initiative will allow merchants to offer Prime shopping benefits on their own direct-to-consumer online stores, which is an exciting next step in our mission to help merchants of all sizes grow their business.

Amazon will charge merchants various undisclosed fees to offer Buy With Prime buttons on their sites, though those benefits don't come for free.