Amazon wants shoppers to post influencer-style content

The e-commerce giant intends to encourage ‘collaborative’ shopping, with new features that build out its TikTok-style content feed and a place to ask friends for feedback on purchases.

Amazon is adding new tools and features that encourage social shopping on its app, including the option to get product feedback from friends and to upload content tagged with products on its TikTok-like feed, Inspire. Oliver Messenger, director of Amazon Shopping, says the aim is to make shopping more “collaborative” — and it’s also part of Amazon’s ongoing attempt to crack social commerce. Can it work?

One new feature, ‘Create’, is an update to the Inspire feed, which is on the Amazon app. It lets any Amazon customer in the US take or upload a photo or video and tag products. Previously, only influencers who are part of Amazon’s influencer programme could upload to the feed; their content was shown alongside select content from brands and from some user reviews. The Inspire tab, which was introduced in December 2022 and is indicated by a diamond icon on the bottom of the app, is now available to all US users. People can swipe up to go to the next video (similar to Instagram’s Reels), tap a heart icon to like the content and click on a product page to immediately shop the item. In the same way that Amazon’s homepage is tailored to each person’s shopping history, the content shown in the Inspire tab is tailored to each user’s account and preferences, and improves as people interact.