Introducing Buy with Prime

 

Prime benefits like free priority shipping are hard to ignore for Amazon shoppers. No wonder that 65% of US-based Amazon customers are also Prime members. Globally, Prime has 200 million members which brings $25.21 billion to Amazon in retail subscription fees.

 

So far, the service has only been available on Amazon’s own marketplaces. But that’s about to change: the company announced its intention to extend Prime to the external webshops of its third-party-sellers. The new service is called Buy with Prime.

 

 

Buy with Prime’s first phase is invitation-only, and works with sellers who already use fulfillment by Amazon. Interested sellers can sign up here to receive an invitation. The service will be gradually rolled out to merchants in 2022, including those who don’t even sell on Amazon.

 

Buy with Prime works with Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and almost any shopsystem favoured by sellers.

 

It seems that initially only US-based shoppers can be served by Buy with Prime. However, this may change in the future, should the service become popular with sellers and consumers alike.

 

 

Once invited, signing up for Buy with Prime is an easy process for sellers.

 

Screenshot of buywithprime.amazon.com depicting the onboarding process

 

Participating merchants have to sign up and create an account for Buy with Prime. Then they have to link their Seller Central and Amazon Pay accounts to Buy with Prime, and import their existing product catalog. From these products, sellers have to choose which ones to offer to customers with Prime.

 

Finally, the last step is copying the Buy with Prime button code into their webshop. This step will ensure that customers shopping at a merchant’s external webshop will be able to use the Prime perks they’ve accustomed to expect and trust on Amazon. According to the e-Commerce giant, this opportunity will benefit both merchants and consumers.

 

As Peter Larsen, Amazon’s vice president of Buy with Prime remarked, “allowing merchants to offer Prime shopping benefits on their own direct-to-consumer online stores is an exciting next step in our mission to help merchants of all sizes grow their business—whether on Amazon or beyond. With shoppers purchasing directly from merchants’ online stores, Buy with Prime will allow merchants to build customer relationships and brand loyalty while offering conversion-driving benefits like fast, free shipping.”

 

 

When it comes to the protection of IP rights, the advantages of Buy with Prime may pose quite serious disadvantages for brands. The easy set-up and wide compatibility of Buy with Prime presents fraudsters yet another chance to infringe on your IP rights, steal your revenue and ruin your reputation.

 

 

As we’ve seen in the case of Shopify and its competitors that help users create and run compelling webshops, fraudsters don’t shy away from taking this opportunity. Nowadays, thanks to Shopify & Co, a fraudulent webshop can look as professional, trustworthy and compelling as an authentic one. Buy with Prime can amplify that even more.

 

In the eyes of consumers, Amazon is a rather trustworthy brand. According to a survey, 89% of shoppers would rather buy something on Amazon than on another online marketplace or webshop. This means that in addition to providing tangible benefits, the Buy with Prime button may act like a ‘seal of approval’ for a webshop, signaling to customers that they’re dealing with a trustworthy merchant.

 

Which is great if it’s true. But what if it’s not?

 

The sign-up process detailed above doesn’t include a step called ‘verification’. How (and whether) Amazon will verify the merchants signing up for Buy with Prime is unclear. Since Amazon uses a verification process for its third-party-merchants, it would make sense for them to set up such a process for Buy with Prime sellers as well, at least for the ones who don’t have an Amazon Sellers’ account.

 

But even with a verification process, fraudsters have their ways to sneak onto a selling platform (e.g. using fake ID’s, stealing an honest business’ tax number, etc). Which is why it’s important to take proactive steps to protect your IP rights.

 

 

globaleyez has various highly effective services targeting fraudulent webshops, whether they use Buy with Prime or not.

 

First of all, our domain monitoring service uncovers websites that use your brand name, or a misspelled version of it, in their domain name. We monitor all domain types, including gTLDs, ccTLDs and new gTLDs like .pro or .shop.

 

We collect evidence and record our findings with court-admissible time stamps, thus enabling you to make your case at court, should you wish to do so. You’ll receive thorough analysis and expert advice on next steps. If you want to take those next steps, our enforcement service ensures the quick and effective takedown of the infringing domain.

 

However, enforcement doesn’t have to be the last step. We also offer sustainable domain monitoring, which means that if you want us to, we’ll continue checking if the domain reappears, and if yes, whether it starts infringing on your IP rights again.

 

But what if the webshop doesn’t feature your brand name in their domain? Well, domain monitoring covers that as well. We can check meta descriptions, the content of websites, even html codes to find IP infringements that harm your brand.

 

Next in line, our marketplace monitoring service scours online marketplaces, including Amazon, checking for infringing product listings. Just like with domain monitoring, we document our findings, and provide you with extensive reports as well as actionable advice. Our excellent cooperation with Amazon ensures that, should it come to that, our takedown requests are executed quickly and efficiently.

 

In addition, our image monitoring service discovers your brand’s IP protected imagery, including logos, product pictures and even lookalike images fraudsters created to evade detection. The option to enforce your rights and take down the infringing images is available here as well.

 

Finally, in case you need more information about a product’s origins or a seller’s behaviour, our test purchase service is ready for you. We conduct test purchases both on- and offline in over 50 countries from marketplaces, single webshops, social commerce stores and much more. A test purchase is a great way to gather evidence about counterfeiting, grey market structures and the operation of external webshops as well.

 

 

Buy with Prime provides excellent opportunities to sellers and brands alike. Don’t let fraudsters use these opportunities against your brand: contact globaleyez and let us protect your IP rights both on Amazon, and anywhere else on the internet.