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Amazon Shop Direct shows products from other online stores in Amazon’s search results, labeled “Shop Direct,” and in Alexa for Shopping. Shoppers either click through to the merchant’s website or, for eligible products, tap Buy for Me and let Amazon’s AI complete the purchase on that website.

On November 4, 2026, Amazon launched the Shop Direct Merchant Workspace, a free, self-service portal where merchants register, verify their website, and share a product feed. There are no fees, Amazon takes no referral fee on Buy for Me purchases, and merchants can opt out at any time.

For brands that already sell on Amazon and run their own site, the real decision is narrower than “should we sign up.” Amazon’s own FAQ says it may use publicly available information from your website to make your products discoverable, so some of your site’s products may already be in Shop Direct. Your choice is to manage that presence yourself, leave it alone, or opt out.

Our view: if you have products you don’t sell on Amazon, manage them through a feed rather than leaving Amazon to read your site. If retailer agreements or wholesale pricing make outside listings a problem, opt out.

How Shop Direct works

Amazon says its goal is that “when customers search for specific products or brands that aren’t sold in our store, we want to provide them easy ways to find and buy them on Amazon and our Alexa for Shopping agent.”

Here is how that plays out:

• Where products appear: in relevant Amazon searches, clearly labeled “Shop Direct,” and within Alexa for Shopping.
• The Shop Direct button: the shopper gets a notice that they’re leaving Amazon, then lands on your site to buy.
• The Buy for Me button: for eligible products, the shopper confirms address, taxes, shipping, and payment on Amazon, and Amazon’s AI completes the purchase on your website.
• Who owns the order: you do. You remain the seller of record and handle shipping, delivery, returns, exchanges, and customer service through your existing processes.
• Where it runs: for U.S. customers on Amazon.com, the Amazon Shopping app, mobile web, and Alexa for Shopping.

The program is already large. In March 2026, Amazon said Shop Direct included over 100 million products from more than 400,000 merchants. In its November 4 announcement, it said Shop Direct products appear in hundreds of millions of searches a month.

What the Merchant Workspace changes

Until now, merchants joined through a few feed providers or by emailing Amazon, and Amazon could also read their public websites. The Workspace makes it self-service in three steps: create a Shop Direct merchant account, verify your business website, and share your catalog. You can share it through a third-party app (Amazon names Feedonomics, Salsify, CEDCommerce, and VersaFeed) or by building your own integration with Amazon’s Selling Partner API.

Three details matter more than the signup flow:

• You can reuse the feed you already have. The Workspace accepts widely used shopping feed formats, so a catalog built for other shopping destinations can carry over.
• You choose which products go in. Amazon says merchants can select which items to include.
• You can see what’s live. The Workspace shows which of your products are active and available to Amazon customers.

To be eligible, you need an ecommerce website that sells in U.S. dollars and ships to the United States. One catch for most of our readers: Amazon’s FAQ says creating a Shop Direct merchant account “is not yet available for merchants who already sell on Amazon.” Amazon sellers can email [email protected] instead, and Amazon says they may be eligible to list products they don’t currently sell in its store.

Your products may already be there

Amazon’s FAQ is direct about this: “We may use publicly available information from your website to make your products discoverable to customers.” Product titles, descriptions, images, and prices either come from your feed or from your public site, refreshed regularly, and Amazon decides “whether, when, and how to display this information.”

That approach drew complaints earlier this year. In January 2026, Modern Retail reported that brands which had never signed up found their catalogs on Amazon through Buy for Me. One stationery brand described orders for out-of-stock or discontinued items, and found a sticker shown with a photo of pants, a product it had never sold. Amazon told Modern Retail that businesses can opt out at any time and are removed promptly.

So the first step costs nothing: search Amazon for your brand name and see whether any of your own site’s products show up labeled Shop Direct.

Join, ignore, or opt out

Your situation	What we’d do
You sell products on your site that you don’t sell on Amazon, such as bundles, site exclusives, or made-to-order items	Join by emailing [email protected]. A feed you control beats Amazon reading your site, and the traffic costs nothing.
Your site and your Amazon listings carry the same products	Leave it alone and keep investing in your Amazon listings. Amazon positions Shop Direct around products that aren’t sold in its store.
Your retailer or wholesale agreements bar Amazon listings, or your site shows wholesale pricing	Opt out by emailing [email protected]. Amazon’s FAQ says it responds within two business days.
You don’t sell on Amazon and don’t plan to	Decide on brand grounds. Shop Direct is a free way to meet Amazon demand without seller fees, but some brands don’t want to appear on Amazon at all.

What to check before you join

1. Feed accuracy. Price, stock, and images flow from your feed or your site to Amazon. If a product is discontinued on your site but still in the feed, shoppers can order something you can’t ship.
2. Order handling for Buy for Me. Amazon may give each Buy for Me order a unique email address and forward your messages to the customer. Make sure your team recognizes these orders, so they don’t get flagged as suspicious or cancelled by mistake.
3. Measurement. Before you start, check how Shop Direct clicks show up in your analytics and set a rule to tag Buy for Me orders in your store. Then you can tell whether the program adds sales or just moves them.
4. Channel conflict. Shoppers see your site’s price on Amazon, beside whatever else ranks for that search. Check that your pricing holds up next to your own Amazon listings and your retailers’ prices.

What Amazon hasn’t said yet

• When signup opens to Amazon sellers. The FAQ says Amazon will notify sellers who tried to sign up and couldn’t once support is available. It gives no date.
• How Shop Direct ranks against Amazon listings. Amazon says products “may” appear in relevant searches. It hasn’t said how they’re placed next to products sold in its store.
• Which products qualify for Buy for Me. Amazon says “eligible” products, without listing the criteria.
• Whether ads will follow. Amazon hasn’t said whether Shop Direct products will ever carry sponsored placements. Amazon did start charging for sponsored prompts in its shopping assistant in March 2026, so we’d watch for the same here.

Why this matters even if you never join

Our read is that Shop Direct changes the shelf your Amazon listings sit on. Competitors who sell only on their own sites can already appear in Amazon searches and in Alexa for Shopping, and the Workspace makes it easier for more of them to join. Expect your listing to compete with them as well as with other Amazon sellers.

That raises the stakes on the content Alexa for Shopping reads. Our guide to Alexa for Shopping covers what changed when it replaced Rufus, and the Amazon AI optimization guide covers how to structure a listing so AI shopping tools recommend it. The same catalog quality matters off Amazon too. Our post on Shopify’s agent-callable storefronts covers what AI agents can now read from the product data on your own site.

How Canopy approaches Shop Direct

For partners who sell on Amazon and run their own site, we’d start by searching Amazon for the brand to see what’s already showing. Then we’d sort the catalog into products sold on Amazon, products sold only on the site, and products that can’t appear on Amazon at all. Site-only products would be candidates for a managed feed, and anything restricted by a retailer agreement would get an opt-out request. Much of the work on titles, attributes, and images for Amazon listings carries over to the feed.

Canopy is a full-service omnichannel marketing agency. Our partners have generated $3.3 billion in revenue, with an 84% average year-over-year profit increase and 99.1% partner retention.

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