Sneakers and athletic apparel behemoth Nike is no longer selling its products directly on e-commerce company Amazon.com’s website. Nike is focusing more on boosting its own online platform instead.
The news comes just ahead of one of the biggest holiday shopping seasons, and marks the end of a pilot program that started in 2017. Under the pilot program, Nike acted as a wholesaler to Amazon, instead of selling via third-party merchants.
“As part of Nike’s focus on elevating consumer experiences through more direct, personal relationships, we have made the decision to complete our current pilot with Amazon Retail,” Nike said in a statement. “We will continue to invest in strong, distinctive partnerships for Nike with other retailers and platforms to seamlessly serve our consumers globally.”
Some big names avoid selling on Amazon’s platform, apparently due to the presence of counterfeit products and unauthorized sellers that undercut prices. Nike’s pulling away from Amazon.com could potentially further indicate retailers’ concerns about selling goods via Amazon.
A Bloomberg report mentions that Amazon has been preparing for the move, according to two people familiar with the matter. It has been recruiting third-party sellers with Nike products so that the products are still available on the website, they said. Amazon has also been reportedly taking steps to limit the flow of fakes on the site; for instance, it is allowing brands to put unique codes on their products, as a way to distinguish them from counterfeits.
Nike said it will continue to use Amazon’s cloud-computing offering, Amazon Web Services, to power its apps and Nike.com services.