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Despite having given up on live buying on Facebook and Instagram, Meta remains optimistic about the potential of its apps as a platform for online commerce. The company is now collaborating with Amazon to enable users to shop through Meta’s social apps by linking their Facebook and Instagram accounts to their Amazon accounts. This allows users to check out using their saved Amazon payment details and have their orders shipped to their saved Amazon mailing address.

A representative for Amazon, Callie Jernigan, confirmed to TechCrunch that “for the first time, customers will be able to shop Amazon’s Facebook and Instagram ads and check out with Amazon without leaving the social media apps.” As part of the enhanced experience, she added, “customers in the U.S. will see real-time pricing, Prime eligibility, delivery estimates, and product details on select Amazon product ads in Facebook and Instagram.”

Additionally, Amazon announced that certain products sold by Amazon or by independent merchants on Amazon’s storefront and promoted on Facebook or Instagram will be eligible for the new in-app shopping function.

Customers only need to do a fast one-time setup to link their Amazon account to their Meta account (either Facebook or Instagram). Once this is finished, users may check out directly from the product ad on Amazon, without ever leaving the Facebook or Instagram app. To finish the deal, their Amazon payment details and default mailing address will be used.

First to reveal information about the merger was Maurice Rahmey, co-CEO of Disruptive Digital and a partner of Meta and Google Ads. He outlined the advantages of the partnership in a LinkedIn article, pointing out that Meta would benefit from improved targeting and optimization by displaying advertising to customers based on data from Amazon and retailers who provide Buy with Prime. Customers might check out faster as a result, which would also improve conversion rates. Additionally, Meta will be able to modify other information, such as real-time pricing or delivery estimates, as necessary, and customize the messaging and product page of the advertisement depending on whether or not the user is a Prime member.

Rahmey wrote, “While additional details are still scarce, this partnership could be a massive revenue opportunity for Meta, Amazon, and most importantly, advertisers.” According to Rahmey, Amazon will receive more transactions from large discovery platforms, while Meta will receive more attributable conversions and ad signal.

Furthermore, Rahmeny stated, “This also overcomes any difficulties with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency rules, meaning a genuine closed loop performance engine, because of the shared data of this partnership.”

Since the privacy feature was introduced in 2021, Meta has fought Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, or ATT, arguing that it will harm small businesses that depended on its customized ads.

Meta has been moving its Shops vendors to utilize its own checkout process on Facebook and Instagram as part of other e-commerce operations. With the exception of stores run by Shopify, Meta levies processing fees on those sales. It doesn’t seem like Meta will be changing rates in this case because Amazon is handling its own payment processing as part of this new agreement.

This new agreement is also advantageous to Amazon. Over the years, the massive e-commerce company has attempted to develop its own versions of popular social apps like Instagram and TikTok, but these efforts have never quite taken off. After shutting down its Instagram-like service Spark in 2019, it debuted a retail feed akin to TikTok late last year that allows users to upload both photographs and videos. Inspire, the service, was made available to all subscribers in the United States in May. However, inspire seems excessively commercialized in comparison to TikTok, as it lacks the more powerful influencer content that boosts sales.

The Meta-Amazon agreement is being made at a time when TikTok is attempting to take on Amazon by acting as an e-commerce storefront and discovery engine. TikTok can now access over 150 million users thanks to the debut of TikTok Shop, which went live in the United States in September. That might be viewed as a real danger despite Amazon’s size and influence, especially considering TikTok’s influence among younger Millennial and Gen Z (and even, to some extent, Gen Alpha) consumers.