Amazon’s Buy with Prime program, which lets shoppers with a Prime membership purchase items from third-party stores and check out using their Amazon account, is getting a new payment option: PayPal.
Today, Amazon announced that Prime customers can use PayPal to check out on websites that’ve integrated the Buy with Prime API. The company also said that, starting next year, Prime members will be able to link their Amazon account to a PayPal account so that Prime benefits automatically kick in whenever they use PayPal while shopping.
Merchants who offer Buy with Prime, which launched in April 2022, offload fulfillment to Amazon. (In fact, the service requires that brands store inventory at Amazon warehouses.) Rather than a replacement for payment intermediaries like Shop Pay and Apple Pay, Buy with Prime is essentially a complete e-commerce experience inside a checkout button.
Amazon claims that Buy with Prime is growing rapidly, with brands including Dollar Shave Club and IZOD signing up to offer the service. Buy with Prime orders have grown 45% year-over-year, the company says, and 50% more Prime members have used Buy with Prime this year compared to the same period last year.
Other sources push back against Amazon’s rosy narrative, suggesting that while Buy with Prime is growing, it remains a niche business. Marketplace Pulse’s Juozas Kaziukėnas points out that sending inventory to Amazon remains a major barrier to entry for brands; Shopify even initially discouraged merchants from offering Buy with Prime through its storefront.
Amazon revealed several other updates to Buy with Prime today, including real-time delivery estimates in TikTok ads for Buy with Prime merchants and the ability to purchase items with Prime and without Prime in one checkout on Shopify stores.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Amazon has named long-time executive Samir Kumar as the new head of its India consumer business, following an abrupt leadership change in one of its key markets last month.
Kumar, who has been with the e-commerce giant for 25 years, will assume the role of Country Manager for India, the company said.
This appointment comes in addition to Kumar’s existing responsibilities overseeing Amazon’s consumer operations in the Middle East, South Africa and Turkey, the company said.
The leadership transition was announced by Amit Agarwal, Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Emerging Markets, in an email to staff. The move follows the sudden exit of Manish Tiwary, its previous head of Amazon’s India consumer business, last month.
“India remains an important priority for Amazon, and I am super excited about the opportunity ahead as we continue to transform lives and livelihoods,” said Agarwal in a statement. “We have a strong local leadership bench and, along with Samir’s experiences across Emerging Markets, I am even more optimistic about our future plans to deliver for customers and the business in India.”
Despite investing over $7 billion in India, Amazon is facing challenges in smaller cities and towns where local competitors Flipkart (owned by Walmart) and Meesho (backed by SoftBank) have gained stronger market positions.
Meesho has overtaken Amazon in terms of monthly active users on mobile apps among e-commerce platforms in India, according to Morgan Stanley. Bank of America analysts report that Flipkart boasts over 50 million daily active users on its mobile apps in India, while Amazon lags with fewer than 40 million.
In urban India, Amazon is facing growing competition from quick commerce companies such as BlinkIt, Swiggy, and Zepto, which attract customers with rapid deliveries in as little as 10 minutes.
Flipkart recently launched its own quick delivery service in Bengaluru and the company recently started testing four-hour deliveries on Myntra, the nation’s top online fashion platform, TechCrunch reported on Monday.
Amazon has so far avoided any quick commerce offering in India.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch