Some Minneapolis jewelers say they got a surprise they never ordered when their handcrafted rings and even store gift cards suddenly showed up for sale on Amazon, despite never opening an account on the platform. EC Design owner Emily Johnson says she spotted screenshots of her studio’s pieces advertised on Amazon and rushed to have the listings pulled before any orders could arrive. Other local makers say the auto-generated listings have led to mislabeling, unwanted customer emails and fresh headaches keeping inventory straight.
Johnson told Star Tribune that Amazon labeled one of her silver rings as gold, and there was nothing she could do to fix it from her end, so she pushed for removal after discovering the listings. The paper also reports that Northfield goldsmith Susan Crow found gift cards from her shop advertised on Amazon without permission, and both makers say the practice chips away at their brand control and personal relationships with customers.
How Amazon’s tools are surfacing off-site products
Reporters say the disputed listings stem from Amazon’s experimental features called “Shop Direct” and “Buy For Me,” which pull product information from merchants’ public websites and either send shoppers to the original store or let them complete the purchase inside Amazon’s app, according to Business Insider. Business Insider also reports that the project ties into an internal push to map vast portions of the web into Amazon’s product catalog.
Across the country, merchants say the program has triggered odd, low-value orders landing in their systems from addresses such as “buyforme.amazon” and left them scrambling to figure out what is going on. Bobo Design Studio’s Angie Chua says a large share of her catalog was suddenly visible on Amazon and that more than 180 merchants have now reached out to her with similar stories, according to reporting by CNBC. Sellers complain the listings can show wrong product details or outdated inventory and that the setup can make their own sites feel less like storefronts and more like back-room warehouses feeding Amazon.
Amazon’s response and the opt-out route
Amazon has told reporters the features are tests meant to help customers find products more easily and to drive extra sales, and the company says businesses that do not want to participate can ask to be taken out of the program by emailing [email protected], per Modern Retail. The retailer has also said that Buy For Me checks a brand’s site for current stock and pricing before completing an order and that the tool remains an experiment.
Legal and ethical questions
Local sellers are already debating what to do next. Chua told reporters she is talking with fellow business owners and an attorney about a possible class action, and merchants are asking whether scraping public product pages for commercial listings crosses any terms of use or other rules, according to Star Tribune. De Liu, a professor of information and decision sciences at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School, told the paper that the practice can effectively cause a merchant to “basically lose[]” its digital storefront and reduce independent sellers to “a warehouse,” and his faculty profile provides background on his research into online marketplaces and AI systems.
What sellers can do now
Industry reporting suggests that merchants who find unauthorized Amazon listings should capture screenshots, keep an eye out for orders arriving from “buyforme.amazon” addresses and email [email protected] to request their products be removed. Affected sellers are also comparing notes and collecting accounts to document how widespread the issue is, according to SiliconANGLE. For many small operations, the immediate priorities are guarding inventory, protecting how their brands are described online and deciding whether to join forces on potential legal action.
