- Amazon's “Buy for Me” feature uses artificial intelligence to order products from other retailers.
- Some small businesses have found their products on Amazon without even agreeing to it.
- Amazon calls the feature an experiment that's still being worked out.
Amazonlast experiment in Shopping powered by artificial intelligence may be able to help you find the perfect purchase by being rough with third party companies. Shop directly The “Shop for Me” features, which Amazon began testing last year, make it easier to find and buy items that Amazon may not have in stock.
If you click the “Buy for Me” button, Amazon's system will use information obtained from the brand's public website to place an order on your behalf using your details. From a buyer's perspective, it feels like you're just buying something from Amazon. But from the retailer's perspective, Amazon simply walked into their store uninvited and started calling customers.
In recent weeks, online retailers have begun complaining to Amazon and sharing stories on social media about how they were never asked if they wanted to participate. Some say they didn't even know the program existed until orders started pouring into their inboxes from unfamiliar “buyforme.amazon” email addresses. Others say Amazon put up items for sale that were out of stock or that were never intended for direct-to-consumer sales.
You might not have noticed this if you were just shopping on Amazon. You search for something, see a product that looks legitimate, and the purchase happens in the background. The aggravation concerns only retail trade.
“Items that I no longer have (for example, completely removed from the backend) are sold in the “buy direct from store” section of the app,” says one seller. connected on Reddit. They use AI images of items that do not belong to me and allow orders to my site for items that are out of stock. I did not give my consent and there is no easy way to refuse.”
Amazon said the AI tool isn't doing anything wrong because the listings are based on publicly available product and pricing information. The system must also check whether items are in stock and at the correct price before offering them to customers. If there is a problem, Amazon has an email address that sellers can use to send an opt-out request.
AI buyer sneaks in
Understandably, placing the burden of not using Amazon's artificial intelligence on third-party brands has irritated some of these retailers. Plus, it doesn't help them with orders they've already placed. Not to mention, companies that deliberately stay away from Amazon for financial or marketing reasons might not like being pulled onto the platform by ambitious AI buyers.
And that doesn't even include accuracy issues like those described in the Reddit post. AI systems are only as good as the data they absorb, and if Amazon uses outdated or inappropriate products and images, it's the brand that gets the order that it has to struggle to explain.
There is an added element of irony to this situation, as Amazon is actively fighting against any external AI agents collecting data from its own platform. It's straight blocks bots from GoogleOpenAI and Perplexity. Amazon itself now uses AI to analyze other retailers' websites for convenience.
For buyers, this contradiction largely fades into the background. It's easy to imagine how attractive AI can be to a consumer finding products and comparing prices online. But after years of companies collecting public information without much resistance, tying the process directly to AI procurement could make the problems more palpable, and Amazon's AI buyers may have to start knocking and making their presence known before they take over the registry.
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