Amazon tried to make shopping social. Here’s why it didn’t click

And while Amazon was nowhere near reliant on the video feed to generate any significant revenue, it’s still a little surprising that even the biggest e-commerce player couldn’t make social commerce work.

So what actually went wrong?

Georgi Todorov, founder of Create & Grow said that his team put a lot of money into Amazon’s Inspire feed when it first came out in 2022, and created custom material for five online stores. 

“During the first month, our client who sells home goods saw 31% more contact than with regular product listings,” he said. “But only 0.8% of those who were interested ended up buying something.”

It’s likely that a big reason for this is people just weren’t used to buying products from Amazon in this way. It’s a totally different mindset than what most shoppers have when browsing on Amazon.

“Amazon’s foundation isn’t wired for the impromptu, social serendipity that characterizes platforms made for scrolling and discovery,” said Michelle Nguyen, marketing manager at UpPromote. “Which is why Amazon’s Inspire feed ultimately failed — it was a mismatched fit from the beginning.”

Then there’s the core issue around what typically makes these types of feeds work: influencers.

To ensure platforms have an endless stream of content, they need to encourage influencers to make that content. And it usually requires cash.

Two of the ad executives interviewed for this article confirmed that the creators they’ve worked with felt the $25 payment per video on the Inspire feed was low compared to what they’re typically rewarded with for their efforts elsewhere.

“The price was very low compared to what influencers can possibly make on other platforms with channel diversification,” said Robert Kurtz, group vice president of search media solutions at Basis Technologies. “Feedback I’ve heard is that influencers/affiliate marketers made a lot more money doing affiliate sales on other platforms, while still generating affiliate commissions on Amazon sales.”

Similarly, Todorov agreed that from his team’s experience, it felt like Amazon had no idea at all about how creator economics work.

“Their [Amazon’s] relationships team was looking for professional-quality videos and offered between $0.12 and $0.17 per click, with no minimums,” he added. “A lifestyle blogger [we work with] figured that she’d need more than 50,000 views to make the same amount of money from a single paid Instagram post.”

Simply put, Inspire required a lot of time and effort for little in return for creators.

The situation for Amazon was made harder still because at the time of Inspire’s launch, short-form video was on the rise, meaning Inspire had very little room to establish itself.

“TikTok and Instagram Reels are tough to compete with, especially with a younger audience,” said Briana Cifelli, senior director of retail media at Jellyfish. “The concept of social commerce directly on Amazon was new, and it seems many consumers either weren’t fully aware of it or didn’t feel the need for another video shopping option.”

Amazon isn’t alone in the struggle to find success selling things through social platforms. Social commerce has been a tough nut to crack across the board. Back in September 2022, Digiday reported that Facebook, Instagram and even TikTok pulled back from social commerce in a bid to reset and revise their plans. Challenges at the time revolved around the lack of a seamless customer journey from discovery through paying through the apps, and the inability to change western consumer behavior quickly enough.

“There are examples of highly successful social commerce platforms that have been running in China for many years,” said Matt Voda, CEO of OptiMine Software. “They all have one key ingredient: frictionless payments that are seamlessly embedded into the experience. No platform in the U.S. has solved this missing piece of the puzzle.”

Still, while the payment side is very much a work in progress, TikTok has leaned into the blueprint of its Chinese counterpart, Douyin, with the launch of TikTok Shop in the U.S. in September 2023, having previously made it available in the U.K. and Southeast Asia.

“TikTok didn’t start out as a place to shop; it started out as a place to have fun, and as people used it, commerce naturally grew out of their actions.” said Nguyen. “Commerce wasn’t a forced addition; it became a natural part of the content experience.”

The bottom line is this: TikTok has created an ecosystem where commerce feels native to the user experience, while on the back end, creators can get paid reasonably for their efforts. Amazon’s Inspire had neither of those things, which meant it was probably doomed from the start.

“Amazon is inherently not geared to social commerce — it’s an e-commerce platform but it does not have the social fabric to support a social driven e-commerce play,” said Lori Fields, founder, CEO and president of digital marketing agency Jay Street Partners. “Social commerce has to evolve from a platform that is first a social platform and secondarily e-commerce.”

Responding to this, an Amazon spokesperson said that Amazon regularly evaluates various features to better align with what customers tell them most, and as such, Inspire is no longer available.

“Customers can continue to get inspiration across the Amazon store with Shop by Interest, the new Window Display on homepage, Creator storefronts, curated collections, and more. In addition to these features and our powerful search engine, we make it easy to find and discover products through our AI features such as visual search, AI Shopping Guides, and our shopping assistant, Rufus,” the spokesperson said. “Beyond Amazon, we know that customers look for inspiration and product recommendations in social feeds, and we’re innovating to make shopping Amazon products more enjoyable through seamless social media integrations.”