Amazon acquired an Australian-based e-commerce platform Selz, According to Selz CEO and founder Martin Rushe. Selz is a platform that allows users to build their online stores and manage payments, just like Shopify.
In recent weeks, Amazon has been at the top of the news for its exclusive digital currency project, and now it wants to acquire Selz to announce the start of the competition with Shopify.
Selz is a young company and founded in 2013 with total funding of $11 million. It has less than 50 employees and operates in Australia and the Philippines. Partnership with Amazon will be an excellent opportunity for Australian-based company to expand its reach and meet customers in broader markets.
Selz announced the acquisition on 15th January, and it took almost a month for Amazon to confirm the deal. “We have signed an agreement to be acquired by Amazon and are looking forward to working with them as we continue to build easy-to-use tools for entrepreneurs.” Selz CEO added.
The new policies and terms under Amazon ownership are unknown yet, but Rushe promised that “Nothing is changing for our customers at this time.” Amazon refused to reveal the details about the deal. The deal caused Shopify’s shares to fall slightly less than 1 percent in the stock market.
Amazon wants to be more competitive
Acquiring Selz provides a great chance for Amazon to compete with Shopify. Shopify currently holds a significant share of the e-commerce market, and it experienced considerable growth during the Coronavirus outbreak. As a leading e-commerce platform, Shopify has more than 2 million users around the world, and its 2020 third-quarter profit was around $767 million. It is providing services to more than 1 million businesses.
Amazon Marketplace is continuously growing, and it serves more than 2.5 million sellers. Providing more services to third-party sellers will help Amazon position itself in the market and stoke interests in its Marketplace.
Amazon is constantly changing its business model to keep the market share and gain more customers. Of course, Amazon has a failed experience in the e-commerce market. They launched Amazon Webstore as a competitor to Shopify, but finally, the service shut down in 2015 as it couldn’t meet the expectations. It’s clear that Amazon will take a different path for managing and using Selz.
It seems that Amazon wants to start a transition period, as Jeff Bezos will step down as founder and CEO and take the executive chairman role. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services, will replace Bezos.