Amazon is shutting down Selz, GeekWire has learned, about a year after acquiring the small e-commerce startup.
Founded in 2013, Selz helps entrepreneurs sell products online. Amazon’s acquisition signaled its continued focus on third-party sellers and raised speculation about Amazon competing more directly with Shopify in providing e-commerce services regardless of whether merchants sell on Amazon.com or elsewhere.
“We planned to continue to support Selz merchants, however, after a thorough review, we have made a difficult decision to no longer provide Selz offering as a standalone service,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to GeekWire. “We are committed to supporting Selz merchants through this process by giving a 60-day notice, facilitating their transition to any of the many other providers at merchants’ own choice and immediately waiving associated monthly and annual service fees.”
Amazon did not confirm how many employees work for Selz.
“This decision does not impact the talented and experienced Selz employees who are hard at work innovating and supporting merchants’ business on their direct-to-consumer stores with the launch of Buy with Prime,” the spokesperson said.
Amazon last month unveiled Buy with Prime, a new program that will let Prime members buy items on non-Amazon e-commerce sites just as they would on Amazon.com, including streamlined checkout and free delivery of items as soon as the next day. It allows merchants to put a “Buy with Prime” button next to eligible items on their own e-commerce sites.
The move was seen by some analysts as directly competitive to Shopify, which has been building out its own shipping service. Shopify today announced that it will pay $2.1 billion to acquire logistics startup Deliverr.
Earlier this year Amazon acquired Veeqo, a software company based in the United Kingdom that offers inventory and fulfillment tools for e-commerce sellers on Amazon.com and other platforms.
Selz CEO and founder Martin Rushe is currently a director at Amazon, according to his LinkedIn profile.
