- Amazon executives have considered launching a new service that would compete with Shopify this year.
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was directly involved in the talks, as Amazon executives have grown “defensive” about Shopify’s massive growth in recent years.
- The company previously shut down a similar service called Amazon Webstore in 2015.
- While Amazon and Shopify are not direct competitors, they effectively fight over the same merchants who want to sell online.
There’s been a scramble among Amazon executives to assess Shopify’s growing threat as a competitor, including talks of launching a competing service, Business Insider has learned.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been directly involved in the discussions, which took place in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter. It’s one of the many here-and-now issues Bezos has addressed this year, as the CEO has become much more engaged in the daily oversight of Amazon since the pandemic started, Business Insider previously reported.
It’s unclear how far the talks have moved – or what exactly the new service would look like. Shopify sells the software tools needed to build an e-commerce site and has become a popular alternative to Amazon for small businesses looking to sell their products online.