Shopify Warns Merchants Against Using Amazon's 'Buy With Prime' Service (cnbc.com) 17
Shopify is pushing back on Amazon's one-click checkout service. The e-commerce platform is warning merchants who try to install Amazon's "Buy With Prime" button on their storefront that it violates Shopify's terms of service, and is also raising the specter of security risks, according to research firm Marketplace Pulse. CNBC: Amazon introduced Buy With Prime in April, pitching it as a way for merchants to grow traffic on their own websites. The service lets merchants add the Prime logo and offer Amazon's speedy delivery options on their sites. Members of the retail giant's Prime loyalty club can check out using their Amazon account. Shopify will not protect merchants who try to use Buy With Prime against fraudulent orders, according to a screenshot of a notice Shopify sent to merchants. The notice also warns that Amazon's service could steal customer data, and charge customers incorrectly. Shopify's terms of service require merchants to use Shopify Checkout "for any sales associated with your online store," seemingly prohibiting them from offering alternative checkout options.
So here's my problem with shopify... (Score:2, Interesting)
If I go to shopify's website, I get a sales pitch for buying shopify. What do I not get? Actual stores to shop from, and actual products to buy. So, if I want to purchase from a shopify'd store, I wouldn't even know where to look. I DO get that with Amazon. I DO get that with eBay. I DO get that with aliexpress.
Re: (Score:1)
HAH. You just described Amazon. Ebay, Amazon, Shopify.. they're all middlemen.. but yes, the difference is that you need to know the websites for shopify, unlike the others which is just one general marketplace / search engine.
Re: (Score:2)
the difference is that you need to know the websites for shopify
That isn't entirely true. Their Shop app does let you shop from their partners or whatever they call them. I'm not extoling their virtues or anything, just merely clarifying.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Amazon is a middle man. So is Target, Walmart, The Bay, Best Buy... every store that sells products they didn't manufacturer is that same class of middleman.
What of it?
Re:So here's my problem with shopify... (Score:5, Informative)
Shopify sells a subscription to cloud software that runs your business website (without you having any knowledge of technicalities). It's equivalent to what the company WordPress does for blogs. Shopify charges a percentage of the payments so obviously if you add competitor payment systems they are not happy. Shopify's competitors are PrestaShop and Magento with a different payment model (free software hosted on your VPS, you purchase add-ons for everything, like you'd do with WordPress).
Re:So here's my problem with shopify... (Score:5, Interesting)
Correction - Shopify sells you a subscription to handle the e-commerce part of your website. It lets you create little "Add to cart" buttons on your website that lets you handle e-commerce orders on your website - so you have a shopping cart, order and inventory management and other things. It lets you restrict who can buy what items (e.g., perhaps some items can't be exported outside the US), it can calculate shipping and taxes for you and it handles payments.
You as website owner don't have to worry about software updates, PCI-DSS security, credit card handling, e-commerce, basic tech support, etc. You get an order in and Shopify has handled all the background stuff for you - all you have to do is put the item in a box and ship it out.
All you're responsible for is putting up web pages that describe the product you're selling and shipping.
It's literally a simple way to add e-commerce capability to your website. Except you don't have to worry about all the fine details on payments and credit cards and other icky things that could get you in trouble.
You're able to add the Amazon Prime click-to-buy button as well except that things like inventory management won't be in sync anymore, if customers have problems you can't pawn it off on Shopify etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Shopify is SaaS as opposed to traditional web hosting, say self-hosted Wordpress (downloaded from .org) on cPanel on Linux. Or Drupal or Joomla, or no CMS, or no cPanel, or a different OS, or barebones AWS Linux on EC2 with Apache, or home-brew HTML/JS and a scripting language, all that stuff.
Saas would be Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress (.com), and arguably WPEngine and its better imitators. They all: get more expensive once popular, want to upsell to ecommerce, avoid email hosting by affiliating with
Re: (Score:3)
Thats because Shopify is a payment portal provider, not a marketplace provider - you aren't their intended audience, the sites selling goods and services are.
Re: (Score:2)
> you aren't their intended audience
Apparently I'm also not their customers intended audience, because I have no idea who even uses shopify. I think they're losing out by not having this as an option for the retailer. I might be more inclined to shop with them if I even knew who they were.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't go to AWS's site and expect to see a listing of sites that use their service. You don't go to Squarespace's site and expect to see a listing of sites that use them. You don't go to Mastercard's site and expect to find a listing of sites that use them. You don't go to Magento's website and expect to see a listing of sites that use them. So why would you go to Shopify and expect to find a listing of sites that use them? They're a storefront and shopping cart service provider, they're not a retailer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: So here's my problem with shopify... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Shopify is a storefront/shopping cart/payment service provider. I'm not sure where you get "shady" from since they're probably the biggest storefront service provider with billions in revenue and something like 1.6 million storefronts. They don't want you putting an Amazon button on your Shopify-hosted storefront because Shopify's fees for payment providers and shipping labels and the like are part of how they make money from hosting and maintaining your storefront. Shopify's fees are pretty much in line wi
Re: (Score:2)