Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The Amazon Shopping app is rolling out a new feature in beta.
- The Buy for Me tool will let you buy items from other retail stores right on the app.
- This feature uses AI to purchase the item from the other retail store on your behalf.
Amazon’s catalog of products spans a wide gamut, offering over 35 different categories for hundreds of millions of listings. Despite that large collection of goods, there are still some items you won’t find on Amazon. In its continuous effort to become the one and only place you need to go to shop, the company is rolling out a new tool to help you buy the products you won’t find on its app.
Amazon has announced that it is testing a feature called “Buy for Me,” which is rolling out in beta for select US customers who use the Amazon Shopping app. As the company explains, this tool is meant to help customers find and purchase products from other brands’ sites if they aren’t currently sold in the Amazon store.
According to Shopping Director at Amazon Oliver Messenger, Buy for Me uses AI to make purchases on other retail websites for the consumer:
We’re always working to invent new ways to make shopping even more convenient, and we’ve created Buy For Me to help customers quickly and easily find and buy products from other brand stores if we don’t currently sell those items in our store. This new feature uses agentic AI to help customers seamlessly purchase from other brands within the familiar Amazon Shopping app, while also giving brands increased exposure and seamless conversion.
If you’re one of the people who has been selected to try out the beta, you’ll be able to use it by searching for a product in the search results. When you see Buy for Me under the item, you can tap on the item to be taken to a product detail page within the Amazon Shopping app. This detail page will look similar to the detail pages for items sold on Amazon.
From there, you can tap on the Buy for Me button if you want to go through with the purchase. Like with a normal purchase on Amazon, you’ll be taken to a checkout page where you can enter delivery details, payment method, and all the other necessary information. On Amazon’s end, an AI will make the purchase on the brand’s website using the information you provided. The company says that this information is encrypted during the process so the purchase is made securely.
Since the purchase is being made on a different retailer’s website, you’ll need to contact that brand for returns, exchanges, and customer service. You’ll also get an order confirmation from that brand and it will be responsible for delivery. However, you’ll be able to use the Amazon app to track your order by heading to Your Orders in the Buy for Me Orders tab.
This tool is available for both the Android and iOS versions of the app. At the moment, Buy for Me only works with a limited number of brand stores and products, but the company says it plans to incorporate more brands and products based on feedback. It also wants to eventually expand the feature to more customers.
