When Jeff Bezos talks, retail tends to listen – even more so when the Amazon boss is putting his money where his mouth is.

So Bezos’ investment, via venture capital fund Village Global – which also counts Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg in its ranks – in tech firm Obsess is worth examining.

Obsess acquired the pre-seed funding from Bezos and co last year but launched last month. Its mission is to “turn online shopping into an experience and replace the monotonous grid ecomm interface that hasn’t changed since it was created by Amazon 25 years ago to sell books”.