The competing e-commerce companies said the deal centers on an app Amazon will release within Shopify’s ecosystem over the next month, letting
Buy with Prime is an Amazon program that helps merchants offer speedy shipping on orders made through their own sites by leveraging the
When it was released last year, many speculated it was designed to counter the growth of Shopify, an
This week’s deal, made after Shopify got out of the fulfillment business by selling its logistics arm to Flexport in May, could signal some of the tension between the rivals has eased.
The companies, however, positioned the deal as a way to please merchants.
Meanwhile, Shopify president
“This will give their customers more flexibility in how they make their purchases from the independent brands they know, love and trust,” he said in a video announcing the agreement.
Before the deal was brokered, merchants signed up with Shopify had to manage Buy with Prime independent of their Shopify stores – an arrangement that made fulfilling orders more complex and time-consuming.
Many yearned for both companies to make their products more interoperable and analysts questioned Shopify executives on quarterly earnings calls over the last year about whether a Buy with Prime agreement would ever be reached.
As far back as
“When it comes to Buy with Prime, we think any company that's going to make their infrastructure available to merchants to sell more is a great thing. We like it,” he added in February.
“We're going to talk to Amazon now to make that work, but it has to be done in a way that we think is important for merchants to have a relationship with their end consumer, and so there's no update at this time.”
By May, Finkelstein was telling analysts Buy with Prime developments were “moving in the right direction, moving positively.”
Amazon said its new app started rolling out on an invite-only basis to select Shopify merchants Wednesday but will be available to all
It claimed Buy with Prime increases shopper conversion by 25 per cent on average.
“Buy With Prime has always been about leveraging what Amazon does best: logistics,” he wrote in a statement. “In other words, how do we get more volume through the fulfillment network in a way that also increases the value of Prime?”
The deal will deliver more of that volume to Amazon, but also hand business to Shopify with transactions processed through Shopify Payments, a feature helping merchants seamlessly accept credit cards and other popular payment methods.
News of the partnership pushed Shopify's TSX-listed shares up by almost nine per cent to
This report by The Canadian Press was first published
Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)
© 2023 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved., source