Amazon Spark, the e-commerce giant’s Instagram competition, and e-shopping discovery social network have shut down after only a couple of years. The service, available to Amazon Prime members, featured a news feed in which the user would like or comment on posts from other members displaying products which could be found on Amazon. Users can then purchase the item on Amazon featured from the posts.
TC says one of the probable explanations for why the social media shut down was because the Amazon VP of Consumer Engagement, Chee Chew, left the company for Twilio in early 2019. Chew significantly invested in Spark, and Amazon could have decided that keeping it alive is no more worth it without him.
A spokesperson informed Engadget:
“We are always experimenting with new experiences to delight customers. We are currently testing #FoundItOnAmazon, a new experience to inspire shoppers looking for fashion styles and home décor. #FoundItOnAmazon is based on the insights from these past experiments. It is currently available to a portion of our customers.”
Amazon has recently been shutting down services which haven’t taken off as the business would like. Before this past week, Amazon announced that the organization would shut down its Amazon Restaurants delivery service in which users could order food from nearby restaurants to be sent to their homes.
The service didn’t take off as expected due to fierce competition in the food delivery business, with major competitors such as Ubereats, Doordash, and GrubHub dominating the market.