Amazon just launched "Buy for Me" (in test).
And if you think this is about checkout convenience, you are missing the point.
This is not a marketplace feature. This is a selection gap engine.
Amazon is effectively saying: "If the product is not on Amazon, we will still capture the intent and route the order elsewhere."
Translation: Selection no longer needs to live on your platform to be exploited.
What this really means:
- Catalog size is no longer the moat
- Seller onboarding speed is now secondary
- Owning the selection gap signal is everything
- Marketplaces that miss their gaps early become execution backends
Amazon now sees, in real time:
- What customers want but cannot find
- Which products convert outside Amazon
- Which categories underperform by country
- Which sellers should be pulled cross-border
All of this before the marketplace even reacts.
They optimize what they already sell.
Amazon optimizes what is missing.
The next competitive advantage in marketplaces is not better dashboards or more sellers.
It is one question only: Which selection gaps are worth filling, and which are not?
If you do not have a system answering that, someone else will.
And increasingly, that someone is Amazon.