Amazon is expanding access to a program called Shop Direct that allows U.S. customers to discover and buy products not sold in its online store.
The retail giant announced Wednesday that it will support third-party product feeds that merchants use to provide information about inventory, pricing, and catalogs to other partners. Using this information, Amazon can also direct shoppers to sellers’ websites through search results and its AI shopping assistant, Rufus, and help customers make purchases using AI.
The company added support for third-party product feeds from Feedonomics, Salsify, and CedCommerce. This gives Amazon real-time access to seller inventory and product information. More feed providers will be supported in the future, and an Amazon Seller Portal with Seller Direct feeds is said to be coming soon.
In February 2025, Amazon began beta testing a new shopping feature that links customers to retailer websites if their search results don’t include the product they’re looking for. Customers see product information on Amazon, but they can also click to visit the retailer’s site for more information, pricing, and shipping options. Customers are notified when they are leaving Amazon’s website, so they are not fooled into thinking they are purchasing from Amazon itself.
The program was available to a variety of brands and was not limited to partners using “Buy with Prime,” a way to offer checkout using the payment information customers have stored on Amazon.
While the move to be listed on Amazon could certainly increase a brand’s exposure and sales potential, it could also give Amazon insight into which brands, products, and price points are most attractive to customers. The company can use this information to improve its business by providing data on competitive products, tracking trends, identifying potential Buy with Prime partners, and more.
It could also help establish Amazon as a starting point for product searches.
The company says Amazon now also supports Buy for Me, which uses AI agents to complete purchases, on third-party sales sites.
The AI bot handles the entire purchase process on behalf of the customer, and the customer only needs to confirm order details such as shipping address, taxes, shipping costs, and payment method on the checkout page. Amazon’s AI then uses the necessary information to complete the checkout from the seller’s website.
Customers can track these orders in the same “Orders” tab they track their purchases on Amazon, or in a special “Buy for Me Orders” tab.
Shop Direct is live for U.S. customers on Amazon.com, the Amazon mobile app, and Amazon’s Rufus AI assistant.
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