Amazon just announced an intriguing new feature called Buy for Me. This essentially means that Amazon will buy stuff for you from other websites. This is meant to work for products that Amazon doesn’t sell directly, and it all happens inside the Amazon Shopping app, where Buy for Me is now available in beta.
This is a limited test, however, so it’s currently only live “for a subset of customers” in the US on iOS and Android. The test is also commencing with a limited number of brand stores and products, but Amazon does plan to roll out to more customers with more brand stores and products in the future.
The feature, perhaps unsurprisingly, uses “agentic AI”, undoubtedly the buzzword of early 2025. So here’s how it works. When you search for stuff in the Amazon app, you’ll get results from Amazon and sellers in its marketplace, but also, “in some cases, additional relevant products from other stores in a separate section of search results”, Amazon says.
This section is labeled “Shop brand sites directly”. For some of these, you’ll see a link to “Buy for Me”. Then you just tap an item, which takes you to the product page. If you then tap Buy for Me, Amazon will make the purchase for you from the brand’s website. You checkout via Amazon, and then Amazon buys the stuff for you, by securely providing your encrypted name, address, and payment details to complete the checkout process on the brand’s website.
Amazon promises it can’t see your previous or separate orders from any brand’s site. Once Amazon makes the purchase on your behalf, you will get an order confirmation from the brand store, and will be able to track your order via the Your Orders section in the Buy for Me Orders tab in the Amazon Shopping app. Delivery, returns, exchanges, and customer service are managed by the brand store, not Amazon.
