Amazon faces anger from small retailers after testing a feature that shows products from other shops on Amazon.com without asking first. The tool, called Shop Direct, places listings for items Amazon does not sell and sends shoppers to the seller’s own website when they click through, according to Business Insider.
Retailers say the listings appeared without notice. Many only found out after customers mentioned Amazon links or after orders arrived through unfamiliar email addresses. Amazon allows sellers to ask for removal, though the listings go live before any consent.
Amazon told Business Insider the feature helps customers find more products and helps businesses reach more shoppers. The company said prices and product details come from public information on brand websites.
That answer has not calmed retailers down as shop owners say permission should come first. They say control over how products appear online matters, especially for brands that chose not to sell on Amazon.
What Are Sellers Saying About Consent And Accuracy?
Angie Chua, chief executive of Bobo Design Studio, said her stationery products began showing up on Amazon late last month. She said she never agreed to join the scheme and only learned about it after spotting the listings. Amazon removed the items once she asked, according to Business Insider.
Chua said the listings carried wrong product names and details. She said the situation hurt customer trust and damaged her brand image. She added that she knows of more than 100 brands that had similar problems.
Other sellers shared similar stories online. Business Insider reported that retailers felt caught off guard and upset about errors they did not create. They fear shoppers may blame them for mistakes tied to Amazon listings.
For small businesses, trust often grows slowly through clear pricing and accurate descriptions. Sellers say unexpected listings risk undoing that work overnight.
How Does Data Scraping Relate To The Backlash?
Shop Direct pulls details from public brand websites. Amazon says that method is acceptable. Critics point to a sharp contrast with Amazon’s own behaviour in recent years.
Amazon previously blocked AI tools from OpenAI and Google from collecting data on its marketplace. The company also sued Perplexity over use of Amazon shopping data, according to Business Insider.
Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse, called the Shop Direct test “full of oddness” in comments to Business Insider. He said it looks strange for Amazon to scrape other sites while stopping others from doing the same to Amazon.
Kaziukenas wrote on LinkedIn that Amazon appears to act against behaviour it now uses itself. That irony has fuelled anger among sellers already uneasy about power imbalances online.
Business Insider reported that Shop Direct links to a wider internal project, codenamed Project Starfish. Internal papers described a goal of gathering product data from 200,000 external brand sites through crawling and scraping last year.
How Does This Tie Into Amazon’s AI Shopping Features?
Shop Direct sits alongside other AI tools that Amazon has promoted over the past year. One of them is Rufus, an AI shopping assistant launched with promises of faster searches, tailored suggestions and easier buying.
At launch, Amazon said Rufus could search based on activity or purpose, add items to baskets, track prices, and guide shoppers using data from Amazon’s catalogue and information from across the web. Amazon also said more than 250 million customers used Rufus during the year, with usage rising 149%, according to its release.
Rufus also introduced Shop Direct and Buy for Me buttons. Those tools let shoppers view products sold elsewhere or place orders on external sites through Amazon’s interface, based on the launch release.
Sellers say that link between AI tools and scraped listings raises fresh doubts. They worry about agents placing orders for items they do not sell or misreading stock levels.
Amazon says more than 60% of sales on its store come from independent sellers, according to Business Insider. Critics say trust with those sellers now looks shaky. The anger around Shop Direct shows how quickly goodwill can fade when consent feels missing.
