Photo: Canva
September 7, 2023
Does Adding Buy With Prime Help Shopify?
Shopify reached a deal to integrate Amazon’s Buy with Prime service into Shopify’s app ecosystem, enabling its merchants to add the Prime logo and offer Amazon’s speedy delivery and return options through Amazon’s fulfillment network.
Shopify’s payment system will ultimately process the transaction at checkout.
“Merchants can give Prime members access to Prime benefits like fast and free delivery outside of Amazon.com for the first time ever,” said Shopify President Harley Finkelstein in a video. “This will give customers more flexibility in how they make their purchases from the independent brands they know, love, and trust. Most importantly, we’re giving merchants access to Prime members while also ensuring they keep 100% control of their brand and their customer data, all within the Shopify admin.”
Launched in April 2022, Buy with Prime enables marketplace sellers that participate in the Fulfillment by Amazon program to extend that experience to their own website.
Last September, Shopify warned merchants that trying to install Amazon’s “Buy With Prime” button on their storefront would violate Shopify’s terms of service, claiming risks around fraudulent orders and stolen customer data, according to research firm Marketplace Pulse.
Under the new agreement, Shopify earns at least some commission from payments with transactions processed via Amazon Wallet through Shopify Payments. Merchants might still have to deal with potentially significant fees and any risks from providing Amazon with insight into their inventory trends.
For Amazon, the deal provides easier access to Shopify’s volume and increases the value of Amazon’s Prime membership as it extends to other sites, according to Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt in a note attained by Barron’s. Buy with Prime is expected to be used by more merchants with Shopify endorsing the service.
“We’ve been thrilled with the feedback merchants have shared about Buy with Prime, including the increased shopper conversion and new shopper acquisition,” said Peter Larsen, Amazon VP of Buy with Prime, in a statement. “We’re excited to help merchants not only grow their businesses, but also save time and resources—all while giving Prime members even more places to enjoy their shopping benefits.”
Discussion Questions
Will Shopify and its partner merchants see more benefits than risks from integrating Buy with Prime into the Shopify platform? Is the Shopify partnership a big win for Amazon?
Poll
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Mark Ryski
Founder, CEO & Author, HeadCount Corporation
Patricia Vekich Waldron
Contributing Editor, RetailWire; Founder and CEO, Vision First
Ricardo Belmar
Retail Transformation Thought Leader, Advisor, & Strategist
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This is a win for both parties. For Amazon it increases the scope of its Buy With Prime program and widens the reach to Shopify powered websites. It also plays a part in bulking up volume in Amazon’s logistics operation which is vital for improving efficiency. For Shopify it removes a gripe that merchants had about not being able to integrate Amazon services without breaching terms and conditions. It also provides customers with more options for things like payment. Notably, Shopify seems to retain control over customer data and processing transactions which is something of a win for the company.
This is a interesting move for Shopify, and a win for their partner merchants. Not only will this help make their platform even more attractive, but having access to Buy with Prime will undoubtedly help drive sales for their merchants. And maintaining their transactions and data within Shopify’s platform is a real coup. This partnership also further extends Amazon’s already expansive reach and ubiquity. It’s hard to see the downside of this partnership – it will be a win for all parties involved.
Definitely a win. Shopify’s own fulfillment service hasn’t panned out, so it’s good to see them pivot. Anything that reduces friction at checkout and increases customer trust in on time delivery will help increase cart conversion rates for Shopify merchants. And Amazon no doubt will get a lift in demand for their fulfillment offering as a result of this initiative. And it’s a win for customers too.
There is nothing more to say after the comments by Neil, Mark, and Nicola. They have covered every benefit, for both parties and the shopper, that I could think of. As Mark expressed, this “is a real coup”.
This partnership is a win for Shopify, Amazon, merchants and consumers.
· Shopify and Amazon focus on their respective strengths of payments and logistics. They will attract more merchants by offering efficiency and ease.
· Merchants access e-commerce excellence and the massive audience of Prime members to drive growth.
· Consumers can shop from anywhere with greater confidence and get fast, free delivery of brands they love.
Amazon wins big, as it will reach more SMBs (who have been the stars of Prime Day) and drive demand for Buy With Prime. More sellers mean more potential B2B buyers of Amazon ads.
I’m a dedicated Prime skeptic — wanting to see realities improve before taking on the near magical beliefs in the value of Amazon (or anyone else) giving so much away. For that reason, I’m quite concerned for Shopify. They have a strong business and can only suffer as now their sites will be too easily mis-identified as Amazon related. Customers, after all, do not know that Prime is available outside Amazon and will continue to believe all sites with Prime must be Amazon sites.
There is a big benefit to Shopify and its partner merchants. The Buy With Prime option can be considered something akin to an endorsement from Amazon. There is a reason this option has increased conversion and new shopper acquisition. People trust Amazon, which has incredible customer service.
Anything that makes purchasing more convenient for the shopper, is a win for the brands involved as well. This was a smart move on both accounts.
After Shopify’s ill-advised foray into fulfillment this agreement seems to provide the desired capabilities for all parties.
This acts as the closing chapter in Shopify’s logistics saga. Having divested of those operations, this partnering with Amazon makes sense and creates plenty of benefit for their merchants and their customers. Shopify merchant’s customers can now buy on the merchants website with the benefit of Amazon logistics fulfilling their order. I expect many customers will feel like they are better supporting their favorite small business seller wit this approach. Amazon wins because they continue to expand across the web to reach more customers where they shop.
Maybe the question we should now ask is whether this means the end of Shopify ‘arming the rebels’ as they used to say! Theatrics aside, this is a win-win-win-win for Shopify, Amazon, Shopify merchants, and consumers. Overall I’d say Amazon gets more benefit than the rest, but it’s still a win all around.
This may be a win for both, with somewhat more benefits acrruing to Amazon (as they now have a fight on their hands from Temu, Walmart and others) for platform dominance.
The question I am interested in is: Is this a win for consumers merchants and consumers? Absolutely, so that makes it a win for Shopify as well.
In short term it is good for Shopify who gets logistics support for their merchants, Amazon gets more benefits for Prime Members and possibly data of Shopify customers (have to read the fine print to see what the data rules are), and consumers gains additional means of payment and shipping. In the long run I do wonder if it dilutes Shopify brand positioning by associating with Amazon
No doubt, Amazon’s partnership with Shopify is a huge win. However, I believe that integrating “Buy with Prime” on Shopify websites will be more beneficial for merchants who sell on both Shopify and Amazon. Since these merchants already have their inventory stored at Amazon’s fulfillment centers, the entire fulfillment procedure is already perfectly established.
If fulfillment is the only requirement for merchants who have an exclusive presence on Shopify, there are a variety of third-party options available, such as Ware2Go. When a retail giant offers fulfillment opportunities, they may use the customer data of partner merchants for curating their own product categories. On the other hand, 3PL companies will focus solely on fulfillment, rather than competing with merchants over customer acquisition.
In addition, retailers like Steve Madden have their own physical stores that serve as fulfillment centers for all of their Shopify orders. So, Buy with Prime integration won’t be of use for such brands.