The e-commerce giant Amazon is facing mounting criticism after independent shop owners discovered that their entire product catalogs were listed on the platform without their consent, sparking a heated debate over data scraping, platform dominance, and small-business rights. The controversy centers around Amazon's "Buy for Me" and "Shop Direct" features, which use artificial intelligence to pull product information from external websites and facilitate purchases through Amazon's marketplace—all while the company simultaneously sues competitors for similar practices.​

The Discovery That Went Viral

Angie Chua, CEO of Bobo Design Studio, a Los Angeles-based stationery boutique, first noticed the unauthorized listings in late December 2025. "Our entire catalog was listed on Amazon without our permission and without our consent. It was a combination of products that we had, products that we've long deleted, that don't exist on our site or on our back-end, as well as leveraging AI images that we didn't create or use," Chua explained. Her viral Instagram video exposing the issue prompted dozens of other independent retailers to check Amazon's platform, with many discovering similar unauthorized listings of their products.​

Amanda Stewart, founder of children's clothing brand Mochi Kids, found 4,000 of her products listed on Amazon after seeing Chua's post, having already fulfilled approximately 16 orders through the program without realizing they originated from Amazon. Chelsea Ward of Los Angeles-based Sketchy Notions expressed frustration with the additional burden this places on small businesses:

"It's just another level of stress that none of us small businesses need. Amazon knows we have such little room to punch back on this".​

How the Program Works—And Why It's Problematic

The controversy stems from Amazon's "Buy for Me" feature, launched in April 2025, and the related "Shop Direct" program, both part of an internal initiative codenamed "Project Starfish". According to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider, the AI tool was designed to collect product data from 200,000 external brand websites through "crawling, scraping, and mapping external items to Amazon's catalog". When customers click "Buy for Me," Amazon makes the purchase from the retailer's website on the customer's behalf using AI agents.​

Amazon maintains the program is "designed to expand discovery for customers and help businesses reach more customers," with product details pulled from "public information on a brand's website". The company states that retailers can opt out if they prefer and that it "proactively introduced" shops it believed would benefit from the program. However, the opt-out model—rather than the opt-in model—has become the central point of contention.​

The Financial Times reported that four independent business owners confirmed receiving orders for items that were either out of stock or inaccurately priced and labeled by Amazon, resulting in customer dissatisfaction. Sarahcock Burio, owner of Hitchcock Paper Co. in Virginia, noted that Amazon had mislabeled products, causing a surge in orders from customers who mistakenly believed they were purchasing higher-end items at discounted prices. "There were no safeguards in place, so when problems arose, there was no one I could turn to," she stated.​

The Trust and Data Dilemma

For many independent retailers, the unauthorized listings represent more than operational headaches—they threaten the foundational customer relationships that small businesses depend on. "We intentionally steer clear of Amazon because our business is built on community and nurturing relationships with customers," Chua told the Financial Times. "I have no idea who these customers are".​

The program denies retailers access to customer email addresses or data that could facilitate future direct sales, effectively inserting Amazon as a middleman in transactions the businesses never authorized. Even after removal, sellers reported that "shell listings" with jumbled SEO keywords remained on Amazon, potentially diverting search traffic away from their own websites.​

Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse, highlighted the irony of Amazon's position:

"All of this is bizarre because Amazon blocked all AI scrapers and sued Perplexity for building automated buying on top of Amazon, while at the same time doing the same thing with others' ecommerce websites".

The $2.5 trillion company has aggressively restricted access for AI agents from companies including Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI, while deploying similar technology against independent retailers.​

What Independent Retailers Can Do

Affected business owners can contact Amazon at branddirect@amazon.com to request removal from the "Buy for Me" program. However, the reactive nature of this approach means retailers must actively monitor Amazon's marketplace for unauthorized listings—a time-consuming task during an already challenging retail environment. Chua estimates she's aware of more than 100 brands that have experienced similar issues.​

The controversy underscores broader tensions in e-commerce about who controls product data, how platforms wield their market dominance, and whether small businesses have meaningful recourse when tech giants deploy their resources without permission. As Chua summarized:

"It completely undermines the trust that small businesses are working so hard to create".

For independent retailers, this latest development serves as a reminder to regularly audit where their products appear online and to act swiftly when unauthorized listings emerge.​