The archive · Business Models · Strategic decision · 2022–2024
Amazon rents out Prime delivery and checkout to other brands' websites
Buy with Prime lets outside brands offer Amazon checkout and logistics — Orveon saw +40% revenue per visitor in A/B tests.
Amazon.com
What it had to solve
Prime's benefits stop at Amazon.com's borders, but members shop across the web, and most brands cannot economically match Amazon's fast, free shipping on their own.
How it works
Prime's promise — free, fast delivery — only applied when members shopped on Amazon, yet much of their spending happened on other brands' websites. In April 2022 Amazon unveiled Buy with Prime, which let those outside sites offer the same checkout and delivery experience.
Participating merchants put a Prime badge on their own websites; shoppers use their saved Amazon checkout details, and Amazon fulfills orders from its warehouses with Prime shipping and returns. Sellers pay per-unit fulfillment, storage and payment-processing fees as they go, with no long-term commitment, while keeping their customer data and using one shared inventory pool for Amazon and direct-to-consumer channels.
For beauty group Orveon, the results were measurable: adding Buy with Prime to bareMinerals.com produced a 40% increase in revenue per visitor and a 60% lift in conversion in an A/B test, so the company rolled the option out to Buxom and Laura Mercier. Amazon says participating brands see 16% higher sales on average, and half of U.S. Prime members say they would be more likely to buy again from a direct-to-consumer site that offers Prime benefits.
The model turns Amazon's membership and logistics advantage into a service rather than a destination: Prime stays valuable when members shop elsewhere, and Amazon earns fees on sales it does not host.
Why it lands
- Prime is Amazon's most valuable asset, and renting it out extends its reach beyond Amazon.com itself.
- Brands get Amazon-grade shipping without building logistics, which removes their biggest disadvantage against the marketplace.
- Merchants keep customer data, so Buy with Prime felt like an upgrade to their own channels rather than a surrender to Amazon.
- Fees scale per order, letting Amazon monetize other retailers' growth without owning their inventory.
What it did
When Orveon added Buy with Prime to bareMinerals.com, its A/B test showed a 40% increase in revenue per visitor and a 60% lift in shopper conversion, and it extended the option to Buxom and Laura Mercier. Amazon reports brands using the program see 16% higher sales on average, and 50% of U.S. Prime members say they are likelier to buy again from direct-to-consumer sites offering Prime benefits.
What you can take
Convert your biggest moat into infrastructure: renting out Prime's checkout and logistics turned a membership benefit into a fee business that other brands pay for.
Since then
Buy with Prime expanded from invitation-only Fulfillment by Amazon sellers to brands selling on their own sites, including integrations with platforms like BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce, and remained U.S.-only as of 2025. Skeptics warned early that handing customer relationships to Amazon could be a trap, but brands such as Orveon reported conversion and revenue gains, and Amazon positioned the program as a way to keep hundreds of millions of Prime members satisfied wherever they shop.
Sources
- Amazon seeks to expand reach with 'Buy with Prime'
- Beauty brands are benefiting from offering Amazon's Buy with Prime to direct-to-consumer shoppers
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