Amazon expands a program that lets customers shop from other retailers’ sites
Amazon expanded Shop Direct (launched beta Feb 2025) to support third-party product feeds via Feedonomics, Salsify, and CedCommerce, letting off-Amazon merchants appear in Amazon search results and Rufus AI. Amazon's 'Buy for Me' AI agent now completes purchases on third-party sites on behalf of customers.
Brands not on Amazon can now capture Amazon search traffic — but every click and conversion Amazon observes becomes competitive intelligence Amazon can use to launch or prioritize its own products. Sellers already on Amazon should monitor if their category search results start surfacing off-Amazon competitors, which would signal margin and conversion pressure.
Amazon is consolidating its position as the default starting point for all product discovery — on or off its platform — while harvesting competitive data from every off-Amazon brand that participates, accelerating its private label and Buy with Prime expansion strategy.
If you run a DTC or off-Amazon brand: submit your feed via Feedonomics, Salsify, or CedCommerce now to appear in Amazon/Rufus results before competitors claim visibility — check your feed provider's Amazon Shop Direct integration settings.
Amazon sellers: pull your Search Query Performance report in Seller Central monthly starting now — if impression share drops without ad spend changes, Shop Direct competitors may be entering your search results.
Bottom Line
Amazon now sends shoppers to rival sites, making itself the universal product search engine.
Source Lens
Industry Context
Useful background context, but lower-priority than direct platform, community, or operator intelligence.
Impact Level
high
Amazon now sends shoppers to rival sites, making itself the universal product search engine.
Key Stat / Trigger
No single quantitative trigger surfaced in this report.
Focus on the operational implication, not just the headline.
Full Coverage
Amazon is expanding access to a program called Shop Direct that lets U. S. customers discover and buy products not sold in its own online store. The retail giant on Wednesday said it will now support third-party product feeds, which merchants use to provide information about their inventory, pricing, and catalog to other partners.
With this information, Amazon can direct shoppers to a merchant’s website via its search results or its AI shopping assistant, Rufus, and even let customers use AI to make a purchase.
The company has added support for third-party product feeds from Feedonomics, Salsify, and CedCommerce, which provide Amazon access to merchants’ inventory and product information in real time. More feed providers will be supported in time, and an Amazon merchant portal with a merchant-direct feed is said to be coming soon.
In February 2025, Amazon began beta testing a new shopping feature that would link to a retailer’s website when its own search results didn’t include the product the customer was seeking. Customers would see the product information on Amazon, but could click through to the retailer’s site to learn more, check pricing, and view delivery options.
Customers would be notified that they were leaving Amazon’s website so they wouldn’t be confused into thinking they were buying from the company itself. Image Credits: Amazon The program was being offered to a range of brands and wasn’t limited to partners using Buy with Prime — a way to offer checkout using a customer’s saved payment information on Amazon.
While the move to be included on Amazon could certainly boost a brand’s exposure and potential sales, it could also give Amazon insights into which brands, products and price points are most appealing to customers.
The company could use this information to improve its own business by providing data on competing products, tracking trends, identifying potential Buy with Prime partners, and more. It could also help Amazon solidify itself as the starting point for product search.
Image Credits: Amazon The company says it now supports Buy for Me, which has Amazon use an AI agent to complete purchases, on third-party merchant sites as well.
The AI bot handles the entire purchase process on the customer’s behalf, and the customer simply has to confirm their order details on the checkout page, including their delivery address, taxes, shipping fees, and payment method. Amazon’s AI then completes the checkout from the merchant’s website using the required information.
Customers can track these orders in the same “Your Orders” tab where they track their Amazon purchases, or in a special “Buy for Me Orders” tab. Shop Direct is live for U. S. customers on Amazon. com, in the Amazon mobile app, and in Amazon’s Rufus AI assistant.
Topics agentic commerce, AI, AI, Amazon, Amazon Shop Direct, Apps, Commerce, e-commerce, online shopping Sarah Perez Consumer News Editor Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I. T.
across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch. com or via encrypted message at sarahperez. 01 on Signal. View Bio June 9 Boston, MA Actively scaling? Fundraising? Planning your next launch?
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Original Source
This briefing is based on reporting from TechCrunch E-commerce. Use the original post for full primary-source context.
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