Blockworks reported the development citing four sources familiar with the matter. According to them, the initiative is still in its early development stages, but the deadline for the launch is by April 2023. One of the sources revealed that one of the programme’s use cases will allow Amazon users to play blockchain-based games and claim free NFTs, highlighting the initiative’s focus towards gaming.
According to Blockworks, the Amazon executives who oversaw the initiatives were in contact with at least one family office. The initial plan was to create at least one NFT collection in collaboration with an artist, but plans evolved and they decided to launch a complete NFT programme instead.
Over the past few months, Amazon Web Services (AWS) put up job ads for Web3 developers, but it looks like the initiative will actually launch on Amazon’s main platform.
Amazon officials previously hinted at possible NFT sales. According to cryptobriefing.com, in April 2022, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy could see the company selling NFTs down the road and expected that NFTs would continue to grow very significantly. However, he expressed that Amazon was likely not very close to adding crypto as a payment mechanism for its retail business.
According to an nftgators report from August 2022, USD 260 million has been collectively raised by brands such as Nike, Dolce & Gabbana, and Gucci with the sale of their NFT pieces. The report further states that Nike has amassed nearly USD 1.3 billion in transaction volume from secondary trading of its NFTs.
In January 2023, Amazon has partnered with global payments processor Stripe in order to make better use of the Stripe core payments platform. Amazon Web Services (AWS) would also provide compute infrastructure to assist Stripe in serving businesses worldwide. The two companies have worked together for more than 10 years, and this agreement represented a continuation of their partnership.
In December 2022, Amazon revealed its plans to raise fees for online merchants that use its Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) programme. MCF is Amazon’s third-party logistics (3PL) programme that enables online merchants on platforms such as BigCommerce, Wix, and Adobe Commerce (Magento), to integrate Amazon’s network of fulfilment centres to deliver orders in unbranded boxes to their customers.
Amazon explained the fee adjustment by saying that it will improve its standard delivery speed from 7 days to 5 days and will continue to invest in its 3PL service to be more efficient and feature-rich.
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