How Amazon Buy with Prime Impacts the DTC Customer Experience

Shopify and Amazon have teamed up to offer Prime delivery to Shopify DTC ecommerce shoppers called Buy with Prime. Third-party ecommerce merchants that sign up for the service will install the Prime badge in their checkout process, connect Amazon Pay as a Wallet within Shopify Payments for customers to checkout with Amazon Pay, and leverage Amazon’s huge distribution network to fulfill orders on their own sites through the Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) outsourced logistics service. This allows merchants to tap into the preferences of Amazon Prime members, such as fast shipping and a seamless shopping experience. Additionally, Shopify merchants can benefit from integrating Buy with Prime into their stores, enabling them to offer fast shipping and easy checkout, while streamlining operations through Amazon’s logistics network. It’s effectively Amazon payment and fulfillment for ecommerce brands.

The potential benefits for a DTC Seller are obvious: they’ll be able to offer their customers one-and-two-day delivery, and Prime users will have their checkout information pre-loaded on the site via their Amazon Wallet. This is no small win. According to McKinsey & Company, more than 90% of US online shoppers expect free two-day shipping, while the vast majority of Sellers lack a network of warehouses to store and ship distributed inventory to make fast and free shipping affordable.

Some drawbacks are obvious – you’ll have to put Amazon branding all over your checkout and post-purchase experience, for instance. Many others are harder to spot, though, and they affect the entire customer experience that you’ve worked so hard to create.

In this blog, we’ll walk you through the basics of what Buy with Prime (BWP) is, how it affects the ecommerce industry, and how it negatively affects your customer’s experience. Finally, we’ll share our perspective on how you can get the key benefit of Buy with Prime (fast and free shipping) without surrendering your brand to Amazon.

What is Buy with Prime?

Amazon Buy with Prime gives DTC Sellers the ability to offer their customers the Amazon Prime checkout and delivery experiences on their Shopify site. When a Seller integrates with the service, they’ll get:

• The Prime logo and expected delivery date in their checkout process
• Checkout financing operated by Amazon Pay
• Checkout will pre-load customer information if they’re already Prime members
• Fulfillment from Amazon FBA which operates Amazon’s FBA fulfillment network
• Shipping by Amazon Logistics (or partnered carriers)
• Option to adopt Amazon Prime’s returns policy

As we mentioned above, the benefit is obvious: Amazon Prime is the gold standard for speedy online delivery, and you’ll get it on your site. Prime has consistently raised customer expectations for fast and free delivery over its history, to the point where slow shipping and paid shipping are two of the biggest drivers of cart abandonment.

If you don’t currently offer fast and free shipping, Buy with Prime will immediately fix that issue for you. The theory behind Buy with Prime is that the easier transaction coupled with buyer expectations for fast delivery will increase conversion rate, (Amazon reports ~16% lift), thus increasing your web store’s growth. Additionally, integrating two powerful ecommerce tools like Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment and Buy with Prime simplifies the management of product catalogs, orders, and returns for online retailers while leveraging Amazon’s Fulfillment Network.

How Buy with Prime Shifts the Ecommerce Landscape

Buy with Prime will leave DTC Sellers with little choice but to improve their delivery experience to meet the standards long set by the marketplaces.

Online brands have long maintained that their curated shopping experiences, community building, and custom unboxing experiences counterbalance the raw power of fast and free delivery from marketplaces. A look at ecommerce transaction value in the United States suggests otherwise, though, as combined US marketplace GMV growth exceeds US DTC GMV growth.

US consumers spend nearly four times as much on Amazon, Walmart, and Target’s ecommerce sites than they do on all DTC ecommerce sites combined. And on top of that, the marketplaces are growing faster. We attribute a huge part of the marketplaces’ advantage to the fast and free shipping that they offer by default on most goods. After all, online consumers cite fast and free shipping as a baseline expectation in survey after survey.

Buy with Prime will ratchet up US consumer expectations for fast and free shipping even further. Now, DTC Sellers aren’t just putting their superior brand and shopping experience up against the convenience of the marketplaces. They also have to fight against competing DTC Sellers that sign up for Buy with Prime and thus combine the power of their brand with Amazon’s famed fulfillment network.

Imagine if YOUR top competitor installs Buy with Prime on their site and blows your delivery speed out of the water. Online consumers love comparison shopping, and you’ll be at a severe disadvantage on your Product Display Page (PDP) and in checkout. You can expect your cart abandonment rate to skyrocket. In short, your slow delivery experience will become an even bigger liability than it already is. Integrating Buy with Prime into Shopify stores can provide a competitive edge by enhancing delivery speed and efficiency, making it important for Shopify merchants to consider this feature. Additionally, by offering Prime benefits, you can boost shopper confidence. Prime members love the reliability and speed of Amazon’s delivery service, and by extending these benefits to your own site, you can encourage more sales and reduce cart abandonment rates.

Likewise, DTC brands can benefit from streamlined fulfillment, offloading the logistics to FBA and potentially enjoying reduced fulfillment costs (more on this later; it may not be as simple as it sounds).

How Buy with Prime Interrupts Your Customer Experience

So, the answer must be simple, right? Just sign up for Buy with Prime and drive more sales.

If only it were that easy.

Unfortunately, Amazon Buy with Prime is a much better deal for Amazon than it is for DTC Sellers, and it’s all in the way BWP will impact your customer experience and ability to retain loyal buyers.

To Amazon, Buy with Prime is about much more than extending its fulfillment operations, Amazon FBA, to DTC Sellers. In fact, they care much more about their ability to get your browsing and purchasing data and use it to their advantage. With BWP, a Seller has to use Amazon Pay for transactions. That means that Amazon will get all of your customer data, and not to mention they’ll bank tons of transaction fees.

While Amazon is laughing its way to the bank, it will be interrupting your customer experience at every step of the journey.

How BWP Affects Discovery

We’ll start at the beginning of the customer journey: product discovery. Here, DTC stores are already at a severe disadvantage: a majority of US shoppers say that they start their online product searches on Amazon.

It’s already an uphill battle trying to get customers to your website. If you install Amazon Buy with Prime, you’ll give Amazon even more ammunition to prevent shoppers from ever making it to you.

It’s simple: if you give Amazon rich data on what your customers are purchasing, they’ll know exactly what to suggest to the customer the next time they stop by Amazon. Since by definition these shoppers are Prime customers, it’s a sure bet that they’ll do so. And when they visit, they’ll see product recommendations perfectly targeted to them, thanks to the additional information that you gave Amazon through Buy with Prime.

Fewer customers will make it to your site organically because more of them find what they’re looking for on Prime without ever turning to a search engine. You’ll have to react by spending more on digital advertising, raising your ACOS, and hurting your margin.

How BWP Affects Conversion

With prominent placement on the Product Details and checkout pages, Amazon Buy with Prime most obviously affects conversion.

While the Prime button promising fast and free shipping from Amazon should help lower cart abandonment rates from shoppers who want fast shipping, it raises a whole host of other issues that counteract the benefits.

First, and perhaps most obviously, Buy with Prime will repeatedly remind shoppers that they should check Amazon before completing a purchase on a DTC website. Price checking is already a core part of many shoppers’ online purchasing behavior, and the Prime logo will only serve to further solidify this trend.

When the price check occurs, the DTC brand can only lose. The customer may see that Amazon has the same item for less (a common occurrence because Amazon strictly enforces their “lowest price” rule), and they’ll also see a host of competitive offers. Taken together, the increased risk of losing a customer to Amazon counteracts the benefit of fast and free shipping.

On top of that challenge, Buy with Prime also removes a key DTC Seller tool to boost AOV. Many Sellers use free shipping as a carrot to induce customers to sign up for loyalty programs or to increase their cart size. “Free shipping for orders over $49” is a tried and true tool to increase profit, but by using Buy with Prime, it goes out the window. Larger order sizes and customer loyalty programs are key pillars in DTC profitability, because each maximizes profit dollars relative to overhead and marketing spend. Amazon will interrupt your ability to use these tools, and instead it replaces your tools with its own loyalty program – Prime.

Finally, Buy with Prime will hurt conversion because it will likely increase cart abandonment rate. According to BigCommerce, the average cart abandonment rate is nearly 70%, and that number rises to a whopping 86% for mobile shoppers. Most DTC Sellers know the truth behind that large number – many shoppers use online carts as a “save for later” feature, and they come back to complete their purchase at a later date. Buy with Prime will interrupt that process and steal customers that are carefully considering a purchase.

How BWP Affects Post-Purchase and Brand Loyalty

Buy with Prime is supported by the FBA network, but Sellers expecting FBA’s low rates will likely be disappointed. Amazon already lets Sellers use FBA for their DTC orders through its non-Amazon solution, Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment, but the fulfillment pricing is shockingly bad.

Cahoot’s analysis of 2025 FBA rates versus MCF rates reveals that MCF is at least 50% more expensive than FBA, and reaches nearly 3X the cost for the small standard size category (which are the items FBA loves to ship!). Sellers that have done the math to consider Amazon FBA vs FBM already know that FBA is a bad deal for items larger than a few pounds, and this comparison rate table suggests that Buy with Prime will be an even worse deal.

On top of that, you will lose the ability to control the unboxing experience. No more free marketing from unboxing videos, no more custom inserts to boost repeat rate, and no more amazing first impressions: Amazon now owns your post-purchase experience. Yes, the experience is improving in terms of delivery speed, but it’s degrading in every other way (we all know how FBA loves to put small items in oversized boxes with a ton of air pillows that customers hate to pop and send to the landfill). And to add insult to injury, you’re now marketing for Amazon by using their Buy with Prime logo on your checkout pages.

How BWP Affects Repeat Purchases

Last but certainly not least, Amazon Buy with Prime will also interrupt your ability to build brand loyalty, win repeat purchases from your customers, and increase lifetime value by carefully cultivating a long-term relationship – the linchpin of sustainable profitability.

You’re up against some daunting statistics – according to a 2024 Marketing Scoop survey, Prime members spend an average of $1400 per year on Amazon, (nearly twice as much as non-Prime customers). And half of Prime members buy something on Amazon at least once a week, and 75% shop on Amazon 3-4 times per month.

And now, every time they visit Amazon, they’ll see recommendations to buy your products right then and there instead of going back to your website.

Amazon can and will use the data it gains from its Buy with Prime plugin on your site to sell to your customers with pinpoint precision. With Prime users visiting Amazon.com just about every week, they’ll quickly start buying your product (or a competitor’s) on Amazon instead of your site.

Amazon is touting Buy with Prime as a way that you can tap into Prime’s huge customer base.

In reality, it’s Amazon’s way to tap into your customer base.

Setting up Buy with Prime on your Shopify store is a straightforward process that can be completed in a few simple steps that start with installing the app. Search for the Buy with Prime app in the Shopify App Store. Once you find it, click on the install button to add it to your Shopify store. There are a few minor configurations, but again, very straightforward.

Alternatives to Amazon Buy with Prime

DTC Sellers must feel like they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they’re squeezed by demanding customer expectations for fast and free shipping, while on the other, they’re faced with the incredible expense of providing fast and free shipping. Now, Amazon promises to help with the latter challenge, but it’s a poison pill that invades their customer experience.

Thankfully, there’s a better way.

Amazon can provide fast and free shipping affordably across the country thanks to its ability to distribute inventory to multiple locations and tightly control fulfillment with intelligent, automated rules. Ten years ago, they were at the forefront of this revolution in fulfillment, but now they’re far from the only ones that can affordably power fast and free shipping.

Cahoot is at the forefront of boosting profitable growth for online Sellers by enabling fast and free shipping across all channels. Unlike Amazon Buy with Prime, Cahoot fulfillment operates in the background, leaving you to own your customer experience – but with new and improved fast delivery. And again, unlike Amazon Buy with Prime, it works for all sales channels: Buy with Prime certainly won’t be available for Walmart and other major marketplaces. You’re limited to Shopify, a plug-in to be used on another ecommerce platform, or custom integration.

And more than Amazon, (and other distributed 3PL networks), Cahoot offers unparalleled flexibility in fulfillment to support the exact needs of DTC Sellers. We offer efficient B2B fulfillment alongside our fast B2C fulfillment, and we also can integrate seamlessly with existing merchant-operated warehouses (or extend your existing 3PL with more locations!). If you have one warehouse on the East Coast, and shipping across the country is killing your margin, we can stand up a West Coast location for you and install our market-leading technology to intelligently govern your new, nationwide fulfillment network. Of course, if you need a full-service solution, that’s what we do.

Contact us to speak with a fulfillment expert and learn how we can boost your growth while cutting costs and headaches today.

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