Amazon Faces Retailer Revolt Over “Buy For Me” AI Scraping Program

Amazon is facing intense criticism from independent online retailers who claim the company is scraping their websites and listing their products on its marketplace without permission. The controversy centers on two experimental features, “Shop Direct” and “Buy for Me,” which use agentic artificial intelligence to allow Amazon customers to purchase items from external brands—including those hosted on platforms like Shopify and Squarespace—without ever leaving the Amazon app.

The “Buy for Me” tool functions as an autonomous shopping agent that navigates a third-party website, fills out checkout forms, and completes a purchase on the shopper’s behalf. While Amazon pitches these features as a way to “drive incremental sales” and help customers find items not sold directly on its site, merchants argue the program violates their autonomy.

 Many business owners, such as Angie Chua of Bobo Design Studio, only discovered they were part of the program after receiving unusual orders from “buyforme.amazon” email addresses.

Beyond the issue of consent, retailers have reported significant operational failures. Several businesses noted that the AI agent listed products that were out of stock or items they had never even sold. For instance, Virginia-based Hitchcock Paper reported receiving orders for a stress ball product that was not in its inventory.

 Other founders expressed concern over brand dilution and potential tax liabilities, particularly when the AI agent pulls data from password-protected wholesale portals intended for business-to-business transactions.

The backlash has highlighted what critics call a “glaring double standard” in Amazon’s AI strategy. While the company is actively scraping external sites to populate its own “everything store,” it has simultaneously blocked dozens of AI agents from competitors like Google and OpenAI from accessing its own data.

 In late 2025, Amazon even filed a lawsuit against the AI startup Perplexity, accusing its “Comet” browser agent of “covertly accessing” Amazon’s site to facilitate purchases—a tactic nearly identical to the “Buy for Me” feature.

Amazon maintains that the program is a beta experiment and that it currently collects no commission on these external sales. The company states that any business can opt out of the project by emailing “branddirect@amazon.com,” but retailers argue that the burden should not be on them to monitor and request removal from a program they never joined.

 As the number of products accessible via “Buy for Me” reportedly grew from 65,000 at launch to over 500,000 by November 2025, small business advocates are calling for “opt-in” requirements to protect merchant control and customer trust.