Amazon is changing how product discovery works by expanding Shop Direct, a feature that allows customers to find products beyond its own marketplace. Instead of limiting results to items sold on Amazon, it now surfaces products from external brands and retailers, giving them visibility directly in Amazon search. This creates a new channel where Amazon acts as the discovery layer, while brands keep the transaction on their own site.
What is Amazon Shop Direct
Shop Direct is a product discovery experience that allows customers to find items that are not sold directly on the marketplace. When a product is not available internally, it can still appear in search results with details like images, pricing, and descriptions. From there, the customer is sent to the brand’s website to complete the purchase.
This started as a small beta in early 2025. At that time, it was mainly a way to fill gaps in search results. If a product was missing, users could still find it through external links. Since then, it has expanded significantly and is now available across web, mobile, and even AI-driven shopping assistants.
Today, the system includes over 100 million products from more than 400,000 merchants. Some of these can even be purchased through an assisted checkout experience, where the platform helps complete the order on behalf of the customer.
What Amazon just announced for Shop Direct
What is new is how merchants can join. Instead of building custom integrations, brands can now connect through existing product feed providers. This means their catalog, pricing, and inventory can sync automatically and update in real time. In simple terms, if your feed is already set up, you can plug in and start showing up.
This removes a big barrier. Before, adding another channel meant extra work. Now it becomes more of an extension of what brands already do.
From a merchant perspective, the value is clear. More visibility, more traffic, and access to customers who are already searching with strong intent. It also allows brands to keep control of checkout, pricing, and customer experience.
Overall, Shop Direct is evolving from a simple gap-filling feature into a large-scale product indexing system. The addition of feed integrations makes it easier than ever to join, and likely means faster adoption from brands that are already set up with feed management tools.
If you are interested in integrating, contact us.
