Latest / Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast / Amazon's Q4 Deadline Crunch, Walmart's Store Play & AI's New Buy Box

Transcript

Amazon's Q4 Deadline Crunch, Walmart's Store Play & AI's New Buy Box · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Holiday shopping is no longer waiting for Black Friday, but plenty of brands are still operating like the fourth quarter doesn't really start until November.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And after what we saw during prime big deal days, that mindset is getting expensive.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is pulling demand forward, fulfillment costs are climbing, Walmart is building a more serious marketplace operation, and artificial intelligence is starting to change how customers choose which products to buy.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: What connects all of this is pretty simple.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The platforms are moving faster, and brands need to get much better at understanding where their money is going and what actually drives profitable growth.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Mr.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Will, and welcome back to Selling on Giants, where we break down what's changing across e-commerce and what it actually means for the people running these businesses.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the holiday numbers, because they tell us something important about where consumer behavior is heading.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Adobe reported that Americans spent$9.86 billion online during Amazon's prime big deal days on October 6th and 7th.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's an 8.5% increase over last year.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one important distinction here is that this number represents online spending across US retailers, not just Amazon.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually what makes it interesting.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon creates the shopping event, but the demand spills across the entire retail ecosystem.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart, direct-to-consumer brands, and competing retailers all have opportunities to capture those customers.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: More than half of that spending happened on mobile devices, and discounts approached 20% in some categories.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So consumers are shopping earlier, they're shopping across platforms, and they're responding to promotions.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: But here's where I think sellers need to be careful.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Higher promotional sales don't automatically mean stronger underlying demand, because some of those purchases may simply be moving from November into October.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: If your brand had a great big deal days event, congratulations! But before you increase your Black Friday advertising budget, I want to know how much of that growth was incremental.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Did you acquire new customers?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Did your organic sales improve?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Did your bundles outperform individual products?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, what happened to your contribution margin after discounts and advertising?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you pulled three weeks of demand forward by giving away 20% of your margin, that's not necessarily a win.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: The brands that handle the fourth quarter well aren't simply participating in every promotion.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're managing demand, inventory, and profitability across the entire season.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to something much more urgent.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon has several major holiday deadlines arriving this week, and this is where operational execution starts separating prepared brands from everyone else.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: October 14th is the recommended arrival deadline for Amazon Warehousing and Distribution Inventory intended to support Black Friday and Cyber Monday Prime Readiness.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: October 21st is the deadline for FBA shipments using minimal shipment splits.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And October 28th is the deadline for Amazon optimized shipment splits.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal submissions close October 20th.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those are not dates when you want to start making decisions.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Those are dates when your execution needs to be complete.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon can still receive inventory after these deadlines, but that doesn't mean your products will be processed and available when demand arrives.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And, beginning October 15th, Amazon's holiday peak fulfillment fees take effect through January 14th.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon says the seasonal increase averages 32 cents per unit, with the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge applying on top of peak fulfillment fees.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: That might not sound particularly dramatic, but combine higher fulfillment costs with promotional discounts and more aggressive advertising, and suddenly the economics look very different.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I have very little patience for fourth quarter strategies built entirely around revenue targets.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: If your team can tell me how much it plans to spend on advertising, but cannot explain the contribution margin on the products being promoted, the strategy isn't finished.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget, those pressures extend beyond Amazon.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Postal Service's holiday shipping surcharges are already in effect, which impacts seller-fulfilled orders and direct-to-consumer businesses as well.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The objective is not to maximize holiday revenue at any cost, it's to capture the demand your business can actually support profitably, which makes another Amazon announcement particularly interesting.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is giving sellers more control over its FBA partial refunds program.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of treating every eligible return reason the same way, sellers can configure different partial refund percentages based on why a customer wants to return the product.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: The customer may receive some money back and keep the item rather than shipping it back to Amazon.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I understand why some sellers dislike this idea, because nobody wants to encourage unnecessary refunds.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I think dismissing the program entirely misses the economics.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a relatively inexpensive product where return transportation, inspection, processing, and potential disposal consume most of the recoverable value.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: There are situations where paying the customer to keep the product is actually the less expensive outcome.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean enabling partial refunds across your entire catalog.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It means understanding return reasons, recovery rates, and costs at the product level, then choosing where the program makes financial sense.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: A return isn't simply a customer service event, it's a profitability event.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the more volume you push through these marketplaces, the more important those individual decisions become.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is also where having the right operating structure matters, because making these decisions consistently requires more than looking at a dashboard once a month.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: At Bellavics, we've helped brands sell over$500 million on Amazon, and we're a verified ad partner.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest challenges we see isn't a lack of opportunities.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's that brands have too many moving parts, too many competing priorities, and not enough clarity around which decisions actually move the business forward.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Our focus is hands-on strategy and execution that turns marketplace complexity into an operating plan the team can actually follow.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn more at Bellovics.com.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, while Amazon sellers are navigating those costs, Walmart is making some important moves that deserve attention.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: First, Walmart has introduced brand highlights, giving eligible brand owners a way to add richer imagery, video, and text directly to product detail pages.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Think of it as Walmart moving closer to the merchandising capabilities Amazon sellers already recognize from A content.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Brands can manage this content inside Seller Center and apply it to as many as 500 items at once.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I like this development because Walmart has historically required brands to work harder to tell their product story.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I wouldn't simply copy every Amazon creative asset over and call the job finished, because Walmart customers may have different expectations around value, assortment, and product comparison.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your content should address the questions those shoppers actually have.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Start with your highest traffic products, look at conversion performance, and prioritize the listings where better product education can make a measurable difference.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Walmart isn't stopping at merchandising.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: The company just opened another next generation fulfillment center in Stockton, California, adding more than 900,000 square feet of capacity.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart says its broader next generation network supports next day or two-day delivery reach for 95% of the US population.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Walmart Fulfillment Services will also use the new facility for marketplace orders.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's an even more interesting development.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart is testing the placement of selected third-party marketplace inventory directly inside its physical stores.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is that marketplace products could eventually become available for store pickup or same-day delivery alongside ordinary Walmart purchases.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a limited test, and sellers cannot simply enroll their products in stores today.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But think about the implications.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon has spent years building fulfillment infrastructure to bring products closer to consumers, while Walmart already has thousands of stores near those same consumers.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: If Walmart can make meaningful portions of its marketplace assortment available through that infrastructure, the competitive dynamic changes.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And here's my position.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Brands shouldn't treat Walmart as an Amazon account that happens to have different software.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart needs its own assortment strategy, content strategy, fulfillment decisions, and profitability model.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: The opportunity is getting more attractive, but that doesn't make every product a good Walmart product.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Walmart's ambitions go beyond traditional marketplace shopping, which leads into one of the more important developments this week.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart, Shopify, Stripe, Meta, Sierra, and other companies are helping develop something called the Personal Agent Protocol.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, it's an open framework for allowing artificial intelligence agents to interact with businesses securely on behalf of consumers.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of manually searching through websites, comparing products, and completing checkout, a customer could eventually delegate more of that work to an AI assistant.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: The protocol is intended to help businesses verify those agents, manage permissions, and control what actions they can take.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're still early, and this isn't a new Walmart advertising placement or something sellers need to integrate tomorrow.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it signals where commerce is going.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And TikTok made a related announcement with BuyDirect and its new shopping assistant.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: BuyDirect is designed to let customers purchase directly from brands without leaving TikTok, while Shopping Assistant uses conversational artificial intelligence to help answer questions about products, sizing, availability, and purchasing.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: What I find interesting is that TikTok is creating additional ways to complete a purchase without requiring every brand to build its entire commerce operation around TikTok's shop.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: These platforms are all trying to shorten the distance between discovery and checkout.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to a small but revealing study about what happens when consumers actually shop using artificial intelligence.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: ReFi Buy and Clickstream Solutions observed 40 shoppers completing more than 200 shopping tasks across ChatGPT and Google's AI shopping experience.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the ChatGPT portion of the study, 84% of final product selections came from product cards, and 43% of selections went to the first product card displayed.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: At the offer level, 76% of selections went to the first offer card.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a small commission study measuring selections rather than completed purchases.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I wouldn't build an entire growth strategy around those percentages.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the behavior is worth paying attention to, because we've spent years teaching brands how to rank on Amazon and win the buy box.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Artificial intelligence may be introducing a similar competitive structure, except the customer starts with a conversation instead of a search results page.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: First, your product needs to become a relevant recommendation.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then it needs to compete inside a product card.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the actual offer needs to win on factors such as price, availability, and delivery.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So here's something I want brands to consider.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can spend all the money you want trying to optimize your visibility in AI search, but if your product information is inaccurate, your images are weak, or your inventory isn't available, you're solving the wrong problem.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: The next generation of commerce optimization may look surprisingly familiar.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Clean product data, clear positioning, competitive offers, reliable fulfillment, and an understanding of what customers actually want.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: The interface changes, but the underlying disciplines don't disappear.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really the connection across everything we've discussed today.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is creating more promotional demand earlier in the season while making fulfillment economics more complicated.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart is investing in the content and infrastructure needed to compete for that demand.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And artificial intelligence is beginning to change which products customers see and how they choose where to buy.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: The winners aren't necessarily going to be the brands spending the most money or adopting every new technology first.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be the brands that understand their numbers, make decisions quickly, and have the operational discipline to execute.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because more traffic doesn't fix poor margins.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Faster fulfillment doesn't fix bad inventory planning.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And artificial intelligence isn't going to rescue a product catalog that nobody can properly understand.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's where serious marketplace management starts.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I've got for you this week.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you're getting value from selling on Giants, make sure you're subscribed and consider leaving us a rating or review.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: It helps other brands and marketplace operators discover the show, and I appreciate everyone who takes the time to support what we're building here.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Mr.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Will, and this is Selling on Giants.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Keep your inventory moving, your margins protected, and your expectations high.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'll catch you next week.