Amazon’s Buy with Prime program, which lets shoppers with a Prime membership purchase items from third-party stores and check out using their Amazon account, is getting a new payment option: PayPal.
Today, Amazon announced that Prime customers can use PayPal to check out on websites that’ve integrated the Buy with Prime API. The company also said that, starting next year, Prime members will be able to link their Amazon account to a PayPal account so that Prime benefits automatically kick in whenever they use PayPal while shopping.
Merchants who offer Buy with Prime, which launched in April 2022, offload fulfillment to Amazon. (In fact, the service requires that brands store inventory at Amazon warehouses.) Rather than a replacement for payment intermediaries like Shop Pay and Apple Pay, Buy with Prime is essentially a complete e-commerce experience inside a checkout button.
Amazon claims that Buy with Prime is growing rapidly, with brands including Dollar Shave Club and IZOD signing up to offer the service. Buy with Prime orders have grown 45% year-over-year, the company says, and 50% more Prime members have used Buy with Prime this year compared to the same period last year.
Other sources push back against Amazon’s rosy narrative, suggesting that while Buy with Prime is growing, it remains a niche business. Marketplace Pulse’s Juozas Kaziukėnas points out that sending inventory to Amazon remains a major barrier to entry for brands; Shopify even initially discouraged merchants from offering Buy with Prime through its storefront.
Amazon revealed several other updates to Buy with Prime today, including real-time delivery estimates in TikTok ads for Buy with Prime merchants and the ability to purchase items with Prime and without Prime in one checkout on Shopify stores.
