Amazon announces Build It, a Kickstarter-like program that lets customers vote on products and says it will build those that get enough support within 30 days
- A new program from Amazon called Build It lets customers choose to back a new product, and if it gets enough support within 30 days, Amazon will build it.
Context & Ripple Effects
Build It extends Amazon’s earlier push to become an end-to-end channel for hardware startups and its later program for folding manufacturer products into private brands. The new element is a customer-commitment gate before Amazon makes the product.
Amazon had also created merchandising paths for products discovered elsewhere, including a dedicated Product Hunt shop. Build It brings product discovery, demand testing, and production more directly inside Amazon’s own marketplace.
First-order effects
- Customers can signal support for Amazon product concepts before production, while Amazon can use the 30-day threshold to decide which ideas to build.
- Kickstarter now faces a similar customer-backing mechanism operated by a retailer that can also manufacture and sell the resulting products.
Second-order effects
- Hardware makers and manufacturers participating in Amazon’s existing ecosystem face a stronger incentive to use Amazon’s demand signals and sales channel rather than treat it solely as a downstream retailer.
- Product discovery services such as Product Hunt become less differentiated as Amazon moves from featuring externally surfaced products to testing its own concepts with shoppers.
Third-order effects
- If Amazon applies customer-commitment gates more broadly, hardware development shifts toward demand-validated production controlled by marketplace operators rather than standalone crowdfunding campaigns.
- The pattern strengthens Amazon’s position as the intermediary linking product discovery, manufacturing decisions, and retail distribution, including through its private-brand relationships.
The trend: Marketplace operators are moving upstream from selling finished goods to using customer demand signals to determine what gets made.