Amazon.com has acquired Selz, an e-commerce platform based in Sydney, Australia, that helps small businesses create their own websites much the way Shopify does.
Selz founder and Chief Executive Officer Martin Rushe announced the acquisition in a blog post: “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. Nothing is changing for our customers at this time, and we’ll be in touch with customers as and when we have further updates.”
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the acquisition, but no terms were disclosed.
The acquisition signals Amazon’s interest in letting small businesses use their own websites rather than trying to direct all their traffic to its marketplace, where merchants pay commissions on each sale as well as delivery fees. Shopify is popular among many online sellers because the Canadian company gives them more control over the customer experience.
Some sellers also prefer Shopify because of fulfillment delays at Amazon warehouses during the pandemic, as well as the rising cost of doing business on Amazon’s Marketplace platform for third-party vendors.
The Seattle-based commerce giant has disputed those characterizations. Amazon, though, has created an internal team, code-named Project Santos, dedicated to studying and replicating Shopify’s success, the Wall Street Journal reported last year.
Amazon shares slipped less than 1% on Tuesday while Shopify shares rose 1.3%.
News of the blog post, made Jan. 15, was reported earlier by GeekWire.
Seattle Times business reporter Katherine Khashimova Long contributed to this report.