Amazon’s “Buy For Me” Agentic AI Sparks Backlash As Small Businesses Say Listings Are Being Hijacked
When Amazon quietly rolled out its “Buy For Me” beta last year, the company pitched it as a way to expand discovery beyond its own marketplace. But independent small businesses now say the feature is pulling their product information without consent, creating pricing and fulfillment issues that are confusing buyers and eroding trust.
The shop owner of Bobo Design Studio says, "My site, along with countless others are being scraped for Amazon’s app. Products I don’t even have anymore (like fully deleted from the back end) are being sold under this “shop stores directly” section of the app. They use AI images of items that aren’t mine, and authorizing orders to my site for items that are out of stock. I did not opt in to this nor is there an easy way to opt out. How did this happen and what is Shopify doing to rectify this?!"
A video Bobo Design Studio posted on Instagram about the issue is gaining traction with over 500K views so far.
Along with the video post, the brand is calling on other creators and small businesses to speak out about the issue, saying "small businesses deserve consent, transparency, and control."
Did you know Amazon scrapes indie shops sites for their app? I didn’t. And thanks to @hitchcockpaper and my long time customer crystal, I found out.
Amazon is testing a beta program that pulls products from small biz websites (like mine) WITHOUT our consent, uses AI images that aren’t ours, and routes customers to us while breaking pricing, fulfillment, and customer trust.
We didn’t opt in.
We can’t opt out.
We can’t even tell which orders came from Amazon.Small businesses are now dealing with incorrect orders and customer complaints for somthing Amazon set up without permission.
This does not support small business. It’s fuxking exploaitation.
Tag @amazon. Tag @shopify Tag the press. Share this. Small businesses deserve consent, transparency, and control.
Buy For Me is an agentic AI feature integrated into Amazon's shopping experience to help buyers discover and purchase items - even if they aren't listed directly on Amazon.
Amazon Staff
When customers search for branded items in the search bar in the Amazon Shopping app, they’ll see relevant results from Amazon and third-party sellers in our store, and in some cases, additional relevant products from other stores in a separate section of search results labeled 'Shop brand sites directly.' Customers can link directly to these sites, or in some cases, customers will see a link to Buy for Me.
When the customer chooses to use "Buy For Me" Amazon's agentic AI makes the purchase by securely providing the customer’s encrypted name, address, and payment details to complete the checkout process on the brand’s website.
Merchants are supposed to have the option to opt out by emailing Amazon, but Bobo Design Studio says it's not as easy or as fast as Amazon makes it seem to get your items removed.
In an FAQ page for sellers, Amazon says that product and pricing information for Buy For Me is pulled directly from the brand's website and refreshed regularly, to reflect changes merchants may make, but crucially, they also admit that some information may be "modified for display on the Amazon shopping app."
Q: Who controls the pricing, product descriptions, and images?
A: You control pricing and product images as we create listings using public information from your merchant site. The listings of offers from merchant sites are regularly refreshed in an effort to reflect changes made on your site.
Product titles and descriptions of listings of offers from merchant sites similarly use public information from your merchant site. However, we may modify these for display on the Amazon Shopping app.
That modification is a major problem for sellers - as Bobo Design Studio points out in one of several follow up videos, even once they were finally able to get Amazon to respond to their request to opt out and have their products removed, there were still lingering traces of the listings that show Amazon not only scraped their items without consent, but they also used AI generated images, titles, and descriptions that did not match or accurately describe the items.
That could open up massive legal exposure both for Amazon and the businesses whose items are being featured in "Buy For Me" - even if that is being done without the business's explicit consent or knowledge.
Amazon is apparently including many Shopify, WooCommerce and SquareSpace stores that have no idea they have been automatically opted in - the first time they learn about it is once they start getting orders with the anonymized Buy For Me Amazon email address.
One Shopify merchant on Reddit says these orders are causing additional customer service headaches for their business as order and tracking information doesn't seem to sync properly, causing the Amazon customers to contact them for additional information.
Has anyone gotten orders from Amazon's BuyForMe program? I've received 8 so far this month and half of the people have called to ask for tracking when their order was already on its way, it seems like the auto-generated email addresses Amazon's AI uses don't sync in Shopify shipping notification emails.
One guy is complaining about me not offering free return labels, which I physically couldn't send to him anyways because the email address on the order isn't his.
Has anyone successfully opted out of this, I don't remember ever agreeing to Amazon listing our store?
In the most recent update, Angie from Bobo Design Studio is looking for other business owners who have had their catalogs scraped and used for Buy For Me without explicit opt in or consent, saying she has been contacted by an IP attorney who is interested in hearing from affected merchants to see if there may be possible legal action that can be taken against Amazon.
Bobo Design Studio is asking affected merchants to provide their details by filling out a Google form which can be found here.
And as Marketplace Pulse founder Juozas Kaziukėnas points out on LinkedIn, this move is particularly odd considering Amazon's position on other companies using AI to scrape their site - including their recent lawsuit against Perplexity for doing something very similar to what Amazon is now doing to small independant ecommerce sites.
An Amazon spokesperson provided the following statement:
"Shop Direct and Buy for Me are programs we’re testing that help customers discover brands and products not currently sold in Amazon’s store, while helping businesses reach new customers and drive incremental sales. We have received positive feedback on these programs. Businesses can opt out at any time by emailing branddirect@amazon.com, and we remove them from these programs promptly. Amazon is a longstanding supporter of small and independent businesses, and today more than 60% of sales in our store are from independent sellers who leverage our innovative tools and services to run their businesses and serve customers.”
What do you think of Amazon including independent small businesses in Buy For Me without their knowledge and consent? Have your items been scraped and listed on Amazon with AI modified images, titles or descriptions? Let us know in the comments below!
