The Amazon vs. Shopify battle just got a little more juicy.
Shopify’s sassy social media team — or, SaaSy, if you will — has been firing off some pointed tweets this week, subtly and not so subtly calling out Amazon for allegedly making copycat products.
The tweets appear to be in response to a video posted Wednesday by travel and camera bag maker Peak Design, which mocked Amazon Basics over a bag that is suspiciously similar to a bag Peak Design sells called the Everyday Sling. It’s not the first time a company that sells on Amazon has questioned Amazon for making what looks like a cheaper knock-off.
amazon: i won't make a knockoff of your product pic.twitter.com/k74O3LauoY
— Shopify (@Shopify) March 5, 2021
alexa, define "amazon basic" https://t.co/o9fnCyFKW7
— Shopify (@Shopify) March 3, 2021
“Corporate meme warfare has commenced,” noted Bloomberg columnist Tae Kim.
Amazon has long said that it doesn’t use its advantage as the operator of a massive marketplace to compete with third-party sellers on the platform. But an April 2020 investigation by The Wall Street Journal found Amazon employees did use seller data when considering new private-label products.
The Peak Design saga is similar to other complaints lobbed at Amazon, including one by sustainable sneaker maker Allbirds back in November 2019. The CEO and co-founder of Allbirds took to Medium to address Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for a “strikingly similar” wool sneaker product being sold on Amazon under the name Amazon 206 Collective.
We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment and will update the story if we hear back. Update: Amazon declined to comment.
The growing rivalry between Amazon and Shopify adds another layer to Shopify’s zingers this week.
Shopify is a leader in a growing industry of online services that provide technology to help small businesses operate e-commerce sites and process payments. The Canada-based company saw revenue spike 86% last year to $2.9 billion with the acceleration of e-commerce and more people launching online businesses amid the pandemic.
Shopify and Amazon are different — customers don’t buy products on Shopify.com, for example — but in many ways they are competitors as both cater to small businesses and online merchants.
Amazon’s recent acquisition of Selz, a 7-year-old startup that helps entrepreneurs sell products online, signals its ambitions to go beyond its own e-commerce platform to help power standalone third-party retail sites, moving into a new area of online commerce and going head-to-head with the likes of Shopify and BigCommerce.
Revenue from Amazon’s third-party seller services rose 57% in the holiday quarter to $27.3 billion, making up 21% of the company’s total revenue.
Asked in 2019 about the potential rivalry between the two companies, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke dismissed that notion but noted that “Amazon is trying to build an empire, and Shopify is trying to arm the rebels.”
Side note: the subject of the meme that Shopify tweeted is actress Kathryn Hahn, who previously starred in “I Love Dick” and “Transparent” … on Amazon.
