Latest / Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast / Prime Week News Update: Amazon Prime Day, Walmart Deals, and Target Circle Deal Days

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Prime Week News Update: Amazon Prime Day, Walmart Deals, and Target Circle Deal Days · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Selling on Giants.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Mr.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Will, and this week we are recording on June 22nd, which means tomorrow is the start of Amazon Prime Day.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon Prime Day runs June 23rd through June 26th.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Target Circle Deal Days runs during that same window.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart deals already kicked off today and runs through June 28th.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Best Buy Tech Fest is also live through June 28th.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not just Prime Day anymore.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is a four-way retail knife fight for the same shopper, the same wallet, and the same promotional attention.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the first point sellers need to understand.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Consumers do not care about the name of the event.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: They do not wake up thinking, today I will honor Amazon's retail calendar.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: They think everything is on sale, and then they compare Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, TikTok Shop, brand websites, email offers, Google Shopping, and whatever ad follows them around while they are trying to avoid work.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: That means the brands that win this week are not necessarily the brands with the deepest discounts.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: The winners are the brands with the cleanest execution.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Inventory is available, pricing is sharp, listings convert, ads stay live, promotions work, the team knows who owns what when something breaks, and the customer does not have to think too hard.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: That last part matters.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: During deal week, friction gets punished.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: A confusing listing gets punished.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: A weak main image gets punished.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: A budget cap at noon gets punished.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: A hero ASIN running out of stock gets punished.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Promotions amplify fundamentals.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They do not replace them.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with Amazon because Prime Day is still the center of gravity.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: This year, Amazon is making the event bigger, broader, and more aggressive.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Prime Day opens June 23rd at 12.01 a.m.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Pacific Time and runs four full days.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is pushing major discounts across fashion, electronics, beauty, personal care, home, grocery, and summer categories.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon Haul is getting 50% off-site wide on day one with exclusions and marked pricing, and that is not a small signal.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Haul matters because it tells us where Amazon wants some of the value conscious traffic to go.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you are selling low ASP private label products, especially in that$5 to$20 range, you need to pay attention.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the week to fall in love with traffic.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Traffic can lie.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can get more sessions and still have a worse business if the shopper is discount hunting, ad costs are inflated, conversion is soft, and the margin cannot support the promotion.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The question is not just did sales go up.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: The question is did sales go up in a way that helps the account.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is also pushing today's big deals with new drops three times a day during the event.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That matters because it changes shopper behavior.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: People will come back throughout the day, they will compare more, they will wait for new drops, they will check whether something better is coming.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: That makes the event less like one clean surge and more like a rolling series of promotional moments.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: For sellers, that means you need to monitor performance throughout the day, not just look at yesterday's report and pretend the work is done.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Watch budgets, watch buy box stability, watch CPCs, watch conversion, watch inventory, watch whether competitors are changing prices, watch whether your campaigns are hitting caps during peak shopping windows.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Prime Day is not a set it and forget it event, it is a live operating environment.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Amazon is adding another layer with Alexa for shopping.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is positioning Alexa as a Prime Day Discovery tool that can build personalized deal guides, set deal alerts, check price history, and even auto-buy items when they hit a target price.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is a big shift.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is training shoppers to delegate part of the shopping process to an agent.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: That should make sellers a little uncomfortable in a productive way.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: If the shopper asks Alexa for the best deal, the best match, or the product that fits a need, your listing has to be understandable to the machine before it ever persuades the human.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: That means clear product data, clean attributes, strong reviews, competitive pricing, reliable fulfillment, and obvious value.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: The future of Deal Week is not only search result placement, it is whether the platform's shopping assistant understands why your product belongs in the recommendation set.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: This connects to the broader AI search movement we have been talking about for weeks.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is now generating AI images from search bar queries, starting with categories like apparel and home.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: A shopper does not have to know the exact keyword anymore.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: They can search with an idea, a style, or a visual concept.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: That means creative assets are becoming search assets.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Product photography is not just there to make the detail page look nice.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: It helps the platform understand when the product matches a shopper's desired outcome.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: If your images are generic, your attributes are thin, and your product data is messy, you are making the product harder to find in the next version of search.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is why the brands that keep treating creative, SEO, and catalog as separate work streams are going to fall behind.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are all part of the same discovery system now.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, while Prime Day is happening tomorrow, Amazon also has a post-event operational bomb sitting on the calendar.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Starting July 27th, Amazon is moving to a 75-character title cap across most categories outside media.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon will strip promotional language, repeated words, decorative characters, and non-compliant title structures.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Brand owners get a review window inside review listing changes, but the important point is that Amazon's AI can rewrite or truncate titles that do not comply.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is not something I would try to solve during Prime Day week unless there is a true emergency.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I would absolutely cue the project now.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: After Prime Day, every brand should audit title structure, identify keyword-stuffed listings, and prepare for the new item highlights field.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: That new field becomes important searchable real estate.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: The lazy reaction is to complain that Amazon is taking away keyword space.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: The operator reaction is to ask how titles, item highlights, bullets, attributes, images, and A plus content work together in the new structure.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Prime Day is the immediate fight.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: The July title changes the next one.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about advertising because there is a bigger Amazon ad story sitting behind the event.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Reuters reported that the FTC may bring action tied to Amazon's advertising business with scrutiny around ad pricing, auction terms, and reserve pricing disclosure.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: We do not know where that lands yet, and sellers should not build a plan around a lawsuit that has not happened.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the signal matters because this is the part of Amazon's antitrust pressure that touches sellers directly.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon advertising has become one of the largest toll booths in marketplace commerce.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sellers pour money into a system where auction dynamics are not always easy to understand.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: If regulators force more transparency around pricing or auction mechanics, that could matter.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But until then, the practical takeaway is still the same.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sellers need stronger measurement discipline.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot control Amazon's black box.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can control whether your account knows where money is being wasted, where margin is being protected, and whether advertising is creating profitable growth or just expensive volume.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: That brings us to Walmart because Walmart Deals is already live.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart starts one day before Prime Day and runs longer, which is not an accident.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart is trying to capture deal intent before Amazon fully owns the conversation.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Walmart has a new mechanic this year with Walmart Plus members getting early access to hot deal drops before they open more broadly.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: That matters because Walmart is increasingly using membership behavior the way Amazon uses prime behavior.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: The event is not just about discounts, it is about loyalty, frequency, data, and keeping high-intense shoppers inside the Walmart ecosystem.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a Walmart seller placed into the right promotion, that early access window can put you in front of some of Walmart's best customers before the broader market piles in.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger Walmart story is that Walmart Connect is becoming a more serious retail media platform.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart is aligning Walmart Connect US, Walmart Connect International, and Sam's Club under a more unified commerce media vision.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sam's Club's ad platform is being rebranded as Sam's Club Connect.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just naming.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is Walmart building a more Amazon-style ad stack across its properties.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Walmart Connect and Google DV360 partnership is also important.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Advertisers can now activate Walmart first-party audiences through YouTube campaigns and measure impact back to Walmart purchases.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: That narrows one of the historic gaps between Walmart and Amazon.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon has had a strong closed loop advertising story for years.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart is now giving brands more ways to build awareness outside Walmart and still measure sales impact back inside Walmart.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is a real shift for brands that are too dependent on sponsored search.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a seven or eight figure Walmart seller and you have no upper funnel strategy, that gap is going to become more obvious.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart is moving toward a fuller funnel.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: The brands that learn it early will have an advantage before the auction gets crowded.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, Walmart is dealing with tariff-driven pricing pressure.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Price increases tied to tariffs are expected to hit shelves through the summer, and that creates a very practical marketplace issue.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: If 1P shelf prices move up, third-party sellers with domestic sourcing, pre-tariff inventory, or stronger cost control may get temporary pricing advantages.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: But sellers in China heavy categories with thin margins may feel the squeeze quickly.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is where category selection and sourcing strategy become marketplace strategy.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is not enough to say we have demand.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can the margin survive the landed cost?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can the price remain competitive?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Can the buy box hold?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can the advertising still work if the cost basis shifts?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Tariffs are not just a supply chain issue.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: They show up in ranking, pricing, conversion, and ad efficiency.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's zoom out because the retail week is bigger than Amazon and Walmart.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Target Circle Deal Days runs June 23rd through June 26th, directly overlapping Prime Day.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Best Buy Tech Fest runs through June 28th.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: TikTok Shops Deals for You Days are already running through July 2nd.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Shopify's latest platform updates are pushing Agentic Commerce more aggressively through product data infrastructure.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And May retail sales showed non-store retailers, which is the e-commerce category, growing 12.2% year over year.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is the bigger environment.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: E-commerce is still growing faster than total retail, but the competition for that growth is becoming more fragmented.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: The customer has more deal events, more platforms, more comparison tools, more AI assistance, and more ways to discover products without ever starting at your preferred channel.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the operator question is not is e-commerce growing?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: The better question is whether your brand is growing faster than the market and doing it profitably.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: If the market is up double digits and your brand is up 5%, you may feel like you are growing, but you are probably losing share.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is uncomfortable math, but it is the kind of math serious operators need to look at.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Shopify's Agenic Commerce push fits this same pattern.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Shopify is building infrastructure around structured product data and commerce protocols so products can be discovered and transacted through AI systems like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and other shopping agents.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: That means the same data discipline that matters on Amazon also matters off Amazon.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Clean titles, structured attributes, accurate availability, strong product information, clear pricing, good merchandising.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The AI shopping layer does not reward messy catalogs.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: TikTok Shop is also competing for June promotional dollars.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Deals for Udays run through July 2nd with platform-backed discounts and high visibility placements.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sellers who still treat TikTok Shop as experimental need to ask whether that is still true for their category.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: TikTok is not just a content platform anymore, it is a promotional marketplace with its own event calendar, its own operational requirements, and its own quality controls.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I keep coming back to the same point.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Marketplace growth is no longer just about being good at one platform.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon matters most for many brands, and it should still get the most attention this week.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the customer is now moving across Amazon, Walmart, Target, TikTok, Best Buy, DTC sites, Google, YouTube, and AI shopping surfaces.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The brand does not need to be everywhere equally.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That is usually how teams get sloppy, but the brand does need to understand where the customer is comparing and how the offer looks across the ecosystem.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we spend a lot of time with brands at Bellavics.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Event weeks are not just about turning up ads.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Bellivix has helped brands sell over$500 million on Amazon, and we are a verified ad partner, but the real work is turning marketplace complexity into a clear operating plan, which ASINs deserve budget, which offers protect margin, which listings are ready for traffic, which channels should be prioritized, where inventory should constrain spend, when to push, when to pause, and when to ignore the shiny object.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: If your brand is trying to win across Amazon, Walmart, and the broader marketplace ecosystem and the retail calendar is creating more chaos than clarity, visit Bellovics.com.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's bring this back to tomorrow.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you are listening before Prime Day starts, the checklist is simple.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do not rebuild the plan.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Tighten the plan.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: For Amazon, audit the hero ASINs.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Confirm the main image, reviews, price, A content, offer visibility and mobile experience.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Pull the last 30 days of search term data and cut waste.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure campaigns do not run out of budget during peak traffic.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Review sponsored products, sponsored brands, sponsored brand video, and product page coverage.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Check subscribe and save, check bundles, check brand store navigation, align advertising with inventory.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: For Walmart, check buy box ownership, Walmart Connect budgets, WFS Inventory, Pricing, Fulfillment Speed, and Ling Quality.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Walmart Deals is already running, so this is not prep anymore.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is execution.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: For Target and Best Buy, if your brand is participating, make sure budgets, product content, pricing, and inventory are aligned with the event window.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do not let roundell campaigns or Best Buy retail media plans run on normal week assumptions during a promotional week.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: For DTC, make the website easy to shop.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Create or clean up a summer sale page.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Promote bundles.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Capture email and SMS.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Retarget product viewers and cart abandoners.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Send email before the inbox becomes a war zone.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for the team, make sure everyone knows who owns what.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Budget pacing, inventory, buy box, pricing, promotions, reporting, escalations.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: The event will move too fast for vague ownership.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: If everyone is responsible, nobody is responsible.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: The reporting also needs to be ready now.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Watch sales, but do not stop there.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Watch conversion rate.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Watch CPCs, watch A costs, watch tacos, watch row A's, watch budget caps, watch inventory, watch buy box stability, watch whether the event is creating profitable customer acquisition or just expensive volume with a nice headline.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Prime Day performance can be uneven.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some shoppers research before buying, some categories spike early, some build later, competitors will change prices, budgets will move, retargeting may pick up after the event.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: The team needs to be responsive, not emotional.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: There is a difference between managing the event and flinching through it.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger takeaway this week is clear: Prime Day has become the summer version of Black Friday, but even that framing might be too narrow now.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is a retail-wide promotional battle.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon is still the center of gravity, but Walmart, Target, Best Buy, TikTok Shop, and DTC brands are all competing for the same consumer attention.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: The winners will not simply be the brands offering the deepest discounts.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: They will be the brands with the strongest execution, cleanest customer experience, best inventory discipline, and fewest surprises.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Promotions amplify fundamentals, they do not replace them.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode helped you focus before the deal week rush, share it with someone on your team before tomorrow's traffic hits.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are getting value from selling on Giants, take a second to leave a review so more sellers can find the show and stay ahead of what is actually changing.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Will here, signing off from Selling on Giants.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep building.