Amazon expands its Prime badge service to other sites

Amazon announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its program that allows merchants to add the Prime badge to their products on their own websites. This program is designed to give customers more visibility into which products are eligible for Prime shipping benefits.
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The Buy with Prime program, which was first announced last April, allows Prime members to check out on other retailers' sites using their Amazon account and receive free, two-day delivery. The service launched as an invite-only program, but Amazon has said that it will become available to all U.S. sellers by Jan. 31.
The e-retailer also announced a new add-on to the program that lets merchants display reviews and ratings from their Amazon listings on their sites. This can help give potential customers more confidence in the products they are considering purchasing.
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As Amazon confronts slowing sales growth and an extended stretch of economic uncertainty, the wider rollout of Buy with Prime comes as CEO Andy Jassy takes a close look at the company’s expenses and executes the largest round of layoffs in its history. With its retail and cloud computing businesses struggling to maintain the rapid expansion investors grew to expect, especially at the height of the pandemic, Amazon is now under pressure to find new revenue streams.
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Amazon has not disclosed how much it charges merchants to use Buy with Prime. The company has said that pricing includes fulfillment and storage fees, which can differ depending on the sellers' inventory.
Amazon's third-party marketplace has become the centerpiece of its e-commerce business, accounting for more than half of its retail sales. The company also makes money from charging sellers to ship and store their goods in its warehouses, collecting commissions and other add-on services. Revenue from third-party seller services surged 18% in the third quarter from a year earlier to $28.7 billion.
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Amazon's new "Buy with Prime" feature puts the company in direct competition with Shopify and BigCommerce, two popular ecommerce platforms. This move will appeal to sellers who are looking to expand their online presence and need tools to manage their direct-to-consumer websites.
Buy with Prime's Vice President Peter Larsen has said that the reviews add-on is the company's "first foray" into expanding the program with additional features. This add-on is available for Buy with Prime members to use at no extra cost.
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Sellers have no control over the reviews that appear on their websites. This is to keep the feature trustworthy.
It's possible that Jeff Bezos could return as Amazon CEO this year, according to Michael Batnick of Ritholtz. Batnick made the comments in a recent video, saying that Bezos stepping down as CEO would be a "huge loss" for the company. However, he added that it's not out of the realm of possibility that Bezos could return to the role at some point.