Amazon is discontinuing its Product Ads, which comes as something of a surprise given their popularity and the rise of similar ads on other platforms. The offering will be shut down on October 31.

The company told advertisers in an email (via Marketing Land), “While your ads will no longer be visible on Amazon as of that date, you may access your performance reports through December 31, 2015.”

The company says it knows this “may be a disruption,” and that it values advertisers’ business, and suggests selling on Amazon and using Text Ads. The email says:

If you are not already an Amazon Seller and you are interested in selling your products on Amazon, we encourage you to consider Selling on Amazon, with the opportunity to advertise using Sponsored Products.

If driving traffic to your own website is important to your business, we would like to introduce you to Amazon Text Ads, our newest Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising solution that enables you to run text ads on Amazon. Amazon Text Ads is already enabled in your account. Simply sign in to your existing Product Ads account (login required) to learn how to get started.

The company goes on to tell businesses they regret any inconvenience caused by the transition. It remains to be seen how businesses will react to the news.

Image via Amazon