After an analysis of its Buy with Prime business, Amazon is laying off a little over 30 people on that team, according to a source inside the company.
The reduction reflects the needs of the program as it operates today, but overall the e-commerce giant is committed to it, according to an Amazon spokesperson who confirmed the move.
Buy with Prime — which allows Prime members to shop on websites outside of Amazon, use their saved checkout details and enjoy Prime benefits like free, fast delivery and free returns — was introduced in 2022 and expanded to all U.S. sellers a year ago. The option has also expanded via BigCommerce, Shopify and Salesforce. In November Amazon added features like live chat, streamlined returns and order tracking ahead of the holiday rush.
The layoffs impact less than 5% of the Buy with Prime staff, the Amazon spokesperson said. The company is working to find those affected new roles within Amazon; otherwise they will receive their pay and benefits for at least 60 days, are eligible for a severance package and have access to job placement support, the spokesperson said.
“We regularly review the structure of our teams and make adjustments based on the needs of the business and, following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles on our Buy with Prime team,” the company said in an emailed statement.
“Buy with Prime is a top priority for Amazon, with strong adoption from merchants and positive feedback from customers, and we will continue investing significant resources in Buy with Prime to build on that momentum,” Amazon also said in its statement. “We’re grateful to these employees for their contributions, and we’re focused on supporting them in their next steps.”
The relatively small number of people laid off at the Buy with Prime unit adds to the tens of thousands already affected by the downsizing at Amazon in the past year or more.
This month the company said it would cut several hundred jobs at Prime Video and MGM Studios, and in November the company said that several hundred would be let go from its Alexa unit. In March the company said it would eliminate 9,000 positions, mostly at AWS, the cloud services business that has been the company’s profit center, as well as in its Twitch gaming, advertising and People Experience and Technology teams. About a year ago, the company said the workforce reductions that had begun at the end of 2022 would top 18,000, many of them in retail.
Amazon has also closed many of its brick-and-mortar locations. In November the company closed its two Amazon Style apparel stores. In 2022, the company closed all its stand-alone bookstores and other non-grocery stores. The e-commerce giant has said that physical retail remains important, however, noting its grocery expansion.
