TORONTO — Shopify Inc. has reached an agreement with rival Amazon.com Inc. that will allow Shopify merchants to embed Amazon’s logistics capabilities within their Shopify stores.
The competing e-commerce companies say the deal centres on an app Amazon will release within Shopify’s ecosystem letting US merchants that use Amazon’s fulfilment network to add Buy with Prime to their Shopify checkout process.
Buy with Prime is an Amazon program helping merchants offer speedy shipping on orders made through their own sites by leveraging the Seattle-based business’s behemoth fulfilment network.
Before the surprise deal was announced, merchants using Ottawa-based Shopify had to manage Buy with Prime independent of their Shopify stores.
When the app is made available to US merchants using Amazon fulfilment over September, the companies say Prime members will land access to fast and free delivery outside of Amazon.com for the first time ever.
Shopify president Harley Finkelstein had long told analysts asking whether a Buy with Prime agreement would ever be reached that conversations with Amazon were ongoing but no deal had ever been brokered.