Amazon is looking to expand its next-day delivery service with the launch of Buy with Prime, a new service that competes directly with FedEx and UPS for delivery supremacy as the e-commerce wars heat up.
"Buy with Prime is a new way to extend Prime shopping benefits—including fast, free shipping, a seamless checkout experience, and free returns—to merchants’ own online stores, ultimately increasing selection for Prime members," the company said in a blog post announcing the news.
"Participating merchants will display the Prime logo and expected delivery date on eligible products in their own online store, offer a simple, convenient checkout experience using Amazon Pay, and leverage Amazon’s fulfillment network to deliver orders. Amazon will also manage free returns for eligible orders."
Buy with Prime
The launch could be seismic in its effect, as it stands, anyone wanting to get the benefits of the Prime brand need to host stock in Amazon's warehouses. Loosening those rules means that Amazon's mark will be on even more orders and transactions.
Buy with Prime will cost sellers an additional fee and pricing will vary based on a number of factors, such as payment processing, fulfilment, and storage costs.
Initially, the service will be available to those who use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) – where merchants pay to store items in Amazon's warehouses and Amazon handles the shipping – but the plan is to expand over time.
Amazon conquers all
FedEx, UPS, and the USPS must be looking at this news with concern.
Amazon is already a behemoth, dominating the e-commerce space in America, a position that was cemented over the pandemic when shopping moved online.
While spending trends show that physical retail is on the up, Amazon facilitating much of the backroom heavy lifting that goes into e-commerce expands the company's moat even further.
Buy with Prime is limited at launch – by design – but the inevitable expansion over the coming years, bringing more and more direct-to-consumer stores into Amazon's reach, will only strengthen the company.
When you add in AWS, which consistently provides huge amounts of free cash for Amazon to invest elsewhere, Buy with Prime has huge potential to help Amazon dominated US online retail for good.
