On-AMZN: I ran the Enterprise Services Business at Amazon in 2004 and 2005. This business provided the ecommerce infrastructure for large enterprise brands like Target.com, Toys R Us, NBA, Sears.ca and other great brands. This business provided core web technology, branded fulfillment and branded customer service to these clients. In order to reach the small enterprise, a completely self-service (DIY) approach was developed which became the “web store” platform at Amazon. Amazon is shutting down the Web Store business.
What went wrong? I’d love to hear your ideas — comment or email me at [email protected]
Amazon reportedly planning to shut down its Webstore platform for small businesses
Blair Hanley Frank
Geekwire
Amazon has begun telling merchants that it will be shutting down Webstore, its e-commerce platform that allows small businesses to run their own online stores using the company’s technology, according to posts made on a forum for Amazon sellers and a report by Re/code.
Webstore customers will have a while to find a replacement, however. According to the postings, the service won’t be shutting down until June 1, 2016, which means people who rely on it for conducting business can take their time evaluating other products like Shopify.
Amazon isn’t the only company getting out of the business of providing a platform for small businesses to build their own online stores. eBay announced that it will be shuttering its Magneto Go service, which provides similar functionality. It’s a field that has grown increasingly competitive in recent years, with companies like Shopify and Bigcommerce raising lots of money to provide a dedicated experience for small businesses.
The news comes as Amazon also works to transition online retailers who use Amazon Payments away from its Flexible Payments Service product and towards its new Login and Pay with Amazon product. That move has also caused a good deal of disruption for small and medium business owners, and was one of the causes behind Patreon’s recently-announced acquisition of competing crowdfunding site Subbable.
A representative for the company declined to comment on this report.
Original at Geekwire HERE
What went wrong? Amazon failed to provide a viable platform, especially for solution providers. No app or extension marketplace, no real version control… There isn’t even a way to place test orders on a Webstore under development. They did provide onboarding for sellers until sometime last year, at which point the burden fell on solution providers–with (as far as I know) no offer of training to compensate.
Webstore sellers use Seller Central for inventory and order management–the same as Amazon.com sellers use. Purely speculative, but I believe Amazon thought they could piggy-back an SMB platform on top of their primary backend with minimal effort… And it just wasn’t that easy. Also purely speculative, I think the ultimate reason behind the Webstore sunset is the burden it placed on those same shared resources.
Amazon Webstore turned out to be a bad joke, unfortunately. I had a painful experience using it after being mislead by the popularity of Amazon brand. But instead of offering the solution that would work FOR users’ profits, all it did was just sucking money on every transaction suggesting a very moderate functionality in return. And you know what? I’m kinda happy it’s about to close. None of the merchants will have to deal with this clumsy beast ever again.
When the shutdown was announced, I’ve decided to move on and migrated to Shopify instead. As as for now, everything goes pretty good. If anyone’s interested, here’s the link of the thing I’ve used: http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/shopping-cart-migration-options/48082-amazon-webstore-to-shopify-migration