Amazon will make its invite-only Buy with Prime offering available to all U.S. merchants at the end of the month.
Launched in April 2022, Buy with Prime allows Prime members in the U.S. to shop directly from merchants’ online stores and use the features of the program without accessing Amazon itself. Seller partners using Buy with Prime display the Prime logo and delivery promise on eligible products, which signals that the item is available for free delivery—sometimes as often as the next day—with returns included.
By allowing shoppers to use Prime directly via their online stores, merchants can enhance customer relationships and brand loyalty, Amazon says. Prior to widening the availability of the offering, the tech titan only offered Buy with Prime to businesses that were part of the Fulfillment by Amazon platform.
Using Buy with Prime, approved retailers can allow shoppers to check out using their Amazon account credentials in an effort to reduce cart abandonment. Additionally, these sellers will receive shopper order information, including email and shipping addresses.
Amazon also collects and stores information about how shoppers engage with Buy with Prime on the retailer’s site, such as how often shoppers view products offering the feature and how often they initiate and complete or abandon a purchase through the Buy with Prime checkout.
The company did not disclose how much it charges merchants to use Buy with Prime, but indicated that pricing includes fulfillment and storage fees, which can differ depending on the sellers’ inventory.
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Citing its internal data, Amazon says Buy with Prime has increased shopper conversion by 25 percent on average. This measures the average increase in shoppers who placed an order when Buy with Prime was an available purchase option versus when it was not, during the same time period.
“It’s important to note that this is an average,” said Peter Larsen, vice president, Buy with Prime, in a statement. “We’ve seen some merchants, like Trophy Skin, report shopper conversion of more than 30 percent since adding Buy with Prime to their online store. Additionally, merchants such as Wyze have told us they are seeing a 25 percent higher conversion rate and have added Buy with Prime to all eligible products in their catalog. Hydralyte told us that after adding Buy with Prime, they have seen a 14 percent increase in conversion.”
Along with the nationwide rollout, Amazon is adding a reviews feature for Buy with Prime merchants. Sellers will now be able to display customer reviews from Amazon.com in their own online stores. The ability to display ratings and reviews on their own e-commerce stores can help merchants increase shopper trust and conversion, and better inform shopper purchase decisions.
Amazon is even beginning to integrate the Buy with Prime offering with other e-commerce technologies and service providers. BigCommerce announced the Buy with Prime app will be available for its merchants, who can embed the Amazon features in their storefronts without any coding. With the integration, BigCommerce says it is providing merchants with “improved onboarding and management” features to support their growth.
BigCommerce merchants can manage their Buy with Prime product catalogs and view Buy with Prime orders and returns directly within the BigCommerce Control Panel.
The Buy with Prime for BigCommerce app will be available in Q1 2023 to all BigCommerce merchants in the U.S.
It is unclear whether Shopify would be in line to integrate Buy with Prime. While founder and CEO Tobi Lutke said in May that the company is “thrilled” that Amazon opened up its Prime infrastructure to other businesses, research from Marketplace Pulse discovered months later that Shopify merchants attempting to embed the coding of the Buy with Prime button into their site were met with a warning message that it would violate their Terms of Service agreements.
The expansion of Buy with Prime comes as more consumers say prefer the convenience of Prime perks over cheaper prices. According to a survey from Amazon partner e-commerce agency Emplicit, 50 percent of shoppers would buy from Amazon instead of a brand’s own e-commerce site because of fast Prime delivery, even if the product was more expensive. Another 40 percent say using Prime is easier than setting up a new account on another website.
While Amazon continues to expand Prime features to more online retailers, consumers are still finding more reasons to use Amazon. For example, a majority of the Emplicit survey respondents say Amazon is a useful brand discovery tool. Eighty-six percent of shoppers say they purchase products from brands they have never heard of before as a resulting of browsing on the e-commerce giant.
Being featured by Amazon is important, with 80 percent of respondents claiming they check out “similar items” and “others also bought” items that Amazon displays for them.
Almost two-thirds (61 percent) of respondents claim that displaying multiple product images is what visually helps them the most while shopping on Amazon. And more than half use Amazon for research purposes—27 percent look at a seller’s website before they buy if they’re unfamiliar with them, and 24 percent will check to see if the merchant is selling cheaper directly from their site.
More than half of consumers say it doesn’t affect their purchase decision whether their product is fulfilled by Amazon or fulfilled by the merchant, while 29 percent claim they don’t care one way or the other as long as delivery is guaranteed.