Amazon.com, Inc. launched a new service Tuesday that offers a disruptive service for hardware startups that provides those companies support to launch, market, and distribute their products, all wrapped with a neat bow of marketing support.

Called Amazon Launchpad, the new program delivers a streamlined onboarding experience, complete with custom product pages, a marketing package, and (perhaps most importantly) access to Amazon’s global fulfillment network.

The product is said to be geared toward helping startups successfully launch their products while communicating the message they want to spread to a wider audience.

“With Amazon Launchpad, startups can overcome many of the challenges associated with launching new products by using Amazon’s retail expertise and infrastructure to create awareness and drive sales” the pitch from the company reads.

Participating startups receive three core feature: brand development, that offers custom product pages that along with a traditional sales pitch also allows founders to share the story behind the idea, and communicate with those interested in the product; customer reach provides Amazon’s cross-site marketing tools that include placements and recommendations to users to give products from the startups visibility across Amazon itself; and last, Launchpad offers global expansion opportunities from the get-go, although this is limited to those countries in which Amazon offers fulfillment centers, currently limited to 10 global marketplaces.

For those interested in seeking out startup products, Launchpad will also offer its own marketplace which consumers can visit to seek out the new and even occasionally exotic products offered by the startups that participate in the program.

Disruption

Launchpad sounds upfront like a combination of services provided by a number of companies, Shopify, Inc. for selling, any number of companies for shipping, and even the likes Kickstarter for promotion (although without the crowdfunding aspect naturally,) and that’s because it is.

The program disrupts existing players catering to these hardware startups by bringing the power of Amazon’s e-commerce reach in a one-stop shop of services, meaning that hardware startups will no longer need to work with different companies for the various aspects of sales, marketing, and distribution; it probably goes without saying that Amazon is literally the 500 pound gorilla in the room with this play, and their involvement alone, given their market reach and world-class fulfillment services makes Launchpad extremely appealing, particularly compared to smaller, part players catering to hardware startups.

It’s all good, in theory, to say that it’s appealing on paper, but it turns out Amazon had another rabbit in their Launchpad launch hat: they’ve already signed dozens of startups up to the service.

Products available from Launchpad at launch include Bluesmart Smart Carry-On Luggage, eero Home Wi-Fi System, Cuff DVB Smart Sport Band, Fenugreen FreshPaper Produce Saver Sheets, Electric Objects EO1 Digital Art Panel, Soma Sustainable Pitcher & Plant-Based Water Filter, Thync Mood-Changing Wearable System, and Casper Mattress, among others.

Amazon claims to be further working with more than 25 venture capital firms, startup accelerators, and crowdfunding platforms to bring startups to Launchpad, with firms on board including Andreessen Horowitz ,Y Combinator, TechStars, 500 Startups, and Highland Capital Partners to name but a few.

“As the pace of innovation continues to increase within the startup community, we want to help customers discover these unique products and learn the inspiration behind them. We also know from talking to startups that bringing a new product to market successfully can be just as challenging as building it,” Amazon Vice President Jim Adkins said in a statement.

“Launchpad makes Amazon an ideal partner for the most innovative young tech companies,” Co-Founder and General Partner of  Andreessen Horowitz Marc Andreessen added. “It’s yet another way Amazon fosters a real ecosystem of invention and creativity.”

Service provider killer?

While there’s zero question that Amazon Launchpad is going to seriously disrupt the services market catering to hardware startups, the question going forward is just how much it will impinge on other companies providing services to this market.

Shopify is the obvious company to look at, and while it’s hard to say with certainty, it’s a reasonable prediction to say that it will, at the very least, affect Shopify’s growth prospects going forward.

It may not be an either-or proposition as there is no mention that Launchpad users were restricted to using Launchpad exclusively to hawk their wares, but likewise a small startup looking to get ahead is going to find the one-stop shop of services, combined with Amazon’s unbeatable reach, as provided by Launchpad, to be far more appealing than engaging with various other companies that provide parts of the service separately, and without Amazon’s customer reach.

Here’s hoping that Amazon truly delivers on the promise of Launchpad going forward, as it’s good for the hardware startup spaces, and that’s good for broadscale innovation.

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