Overview
- Amazon confirms Shop Direct and the AI "Buy for Me" agent are in beta for select U.S. users, listing items from external brand sites and enabling purchases on shoppers' behalf.
- Independent retailers report unauthorized listings, inaccurate product details and unexpected orders, including items that were out of stock or never sold by them.
- Amazon says companies can opt out by emailing branddirect@amazon.com and that removals are prompt, while characterizing feedback on the programs as positive.
- The company says Buy for Me remains experimental and carries no commission, with available items expanding from roughly 65,000 at launch to more than 500,000 by November.
- Business Insider links the effort to an internal initiative called Project Starfish to crawl and map external brand sites, as Amazon continues a legal fight with Perplexity over unauthorized scraping.