#558 – Amazon’s Biggest Seller Updates From Accelerate 2026
Audio version above. Video version below
Amazon Accelerate 2026 delivered a wave of announcements that could reshape how sellers build and manage their businesses. One of the biggest developments is Amazon’s collaboration with Anthropic, which could bring Seller Assistant’s intelligence, recommendations, and ability to take approved actions into Claude. Helium 10’s Bradley Sutton and Andrea Marquez of Amazon’s This is Small Business podcast explore how sellers may soon combine Amazon business information with tools such as Claude and Helium 10 MCP to research opportunities, analyze performance, and streamline everyday operations.
The episode examines Amazon’s growing role across the entire supply chain. Amazon Global Logistics can now deliver inventory from a factory to a seller’s warehouse or 3PL, while Multi-Channel Fulfillment can provide faster Prime-style delivery for orders placed through platforms such as TikTok Shop. Sellers may also gain access to expanded financing, more flexible supply chain services, and greater protection against immediate listing suspensions.
Bradley and Andrea also discuss how conversational shopping with Alexa for Shopping could help customers discover products without knowing the correct keywords. On the seller side, new product-validation tools can provide valuable category insights before a product launches. Personalized Brand Stores will also allow businesses to create different experiences for first-time visitors and returning customers, making branding and customer relationships even more important.
The episode concludes with interviews about Amazon’s Seller Partner Plugin and updated returns programs, including Restore to New and customized grading. Together, these developments point toward a more connected selling ecosystem—but technology alone will not determine who succeeds. Sellers who combine these tools with strong products, authentic branding, customer understanding, and consistent execution will be best positioned to grow.
In episode 558 of the AM/PM Podcast, Bradley and Andrea discuss:
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 03:49 – Amazon AI & The Anthropic Collaboration
- 07:53 – Expanding Globally With Amazon Logistics
- 10:47 – New Protection Against Immediate Suspensions
- 13:27 – Expanded Amazon Lending Options
- 15:06 – Prime Delivery For Multichannel Orders
- 18:25 – Amazon Supply Chain Services
- 19:40 – Product Discovery Through Alexa
- 26:02 – Competitive Research And Product Validation
- 29:03 – Personalized Amazon Brand Stores
- 32:55 – The New Seller Partner Plugin
- 33:43 – Recovering More Value From Returns
Transcript
Bradley Sutton:
A recap of 10 plus new updates dropped at Amazon Accelerate 2026. And man on the street interviews with Amazonians who work in different departments. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the AM/PM podcast. My name is Bradley Sutton, and I’ll be your host. And this is the show where we discuss all things Amazon, TikTok shop and Walmart private label, and how to generate recurring revenue streams 24 hours a day during the AM and the PM. Hence the name of the show. Get it AM/PM podcast. And as a matter of fact, the day before Amazon Accelerate, I went to a kpop concert in Seattle to see the group La Seraphim. And while I was singing along there, I was still making money online. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, guys, it is time for our yearly episode that we do with Andrea from This is Small Business podcast. Every year, we do a recap episode talking about the new things that dropped at Amazon Accelerate. And so we’re going to be going over those things a lot of AI today, a lot of things about you know, logistics and Amazon advertising. And so we’re just going to riff on it. We filmed this just a couple days ago right here in Amazon Accelerate in Seattle. And also I did some man on the street interviews with Amazonians at different booths on the exhibitor floor. Amazon had a lot of different booths, a lot of different departments. So talk to various ones for some just like, you know, quick, like 123 minute interviews, you know, about, you know, like new AI coming to Amazon, about what’s going on in Amazon UAE, Saudi Arabia, we talked about new customer experience, you know, tools that that Amazon has released a bunch of things. So give me a packed episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. And next year, guys, hope you can join us at Accelerate in person.
Bradley Sutton:
So guys, our annual tradition is back where Andrea and I, we give a recap here at Amazon Accelerate. And so my co-host with the most, Andrea, go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience, please.
Andrea:
I’m Andrea Marquez. Bradley, how many years has this been?
Bradley Sutton:
Is it our fourth?
Andrea:
I think it might be our fourth. This has been one of the longest relationships I’ve had. Just kidding. My husband would be like, excuse me, you’ve known me since we were six. I’m Andrea Marquez. I’m the host of This is Small Business, an Amazon podcast, which you can now find us on YouTube. It’s not audio only. We just started this year. I’m very excited about where it’s going about the look. So I invite you to please, please, please subscribe. Visit us on This is Small Business on YouTube.
Bradley Sutton:
So just type in This is Small Business on YouTube, and we’ll be able to find it.
Andrea:
Yes, you will. And there’s so many founders stories. I mean, you know this, like, we love telling these founders stories. And it’s not just obviously entertaining, but it’s inspiring. It’s fun. We do a lot of different things. We had a dog visit us on set, I did some arts and crafts, which was terrible at. And we just like talking about not just selling in the Amazon store, but what it takes to be an entrepreneur,right? So you’ll find it all. And if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll find it on This is Small Business.
Bradley Sutton:
We do that very, something very similar, obviously, on the Serious Sellers podcast, where we’re interviewing brands and founders. But here at Accelerate, all the brands and founders come to us here because why are they here, they’re interested in all the new and cool things that Amazon is releasing. And that’s what we’re here to talk about. For all of you who couldn’t make it to Accelerate this year, try and come back next year. But let’s give you everything that was missed. So what was your first big takeaway of this? I was about to say weekend, we’re not in the weekend, it’s the week, this week’s events.
Andrea:
I mean, I have to say it this way, AI, obviously, that is the acronym that we’re all talking about. I was also on the main stage. And I spoke to Accelerate, I was doing some crowd work. And I asked one of them, how many times do you think they’re going to say AI on stage today? He said 60. I have to go back and count. But I think that’s the big takeaway here where you now have the support and partner. It’s not just someone, a chatbot. It now is a team on Seller Central. And you can control it, you are in control, right? So I think the big takeaway here is that sellers can do a lot more, they can save a lot more time. We’ll get into all of the specifics, but they can save money, get more ideas, they can back and forth with a brainstorming partner of what they can be doing. So I want to talk about the specifics. But to me, the big thing is, you can do a lot more now, in less time, and you have a team, always 24 seven in your pocket.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, so what she’s talking about is a Seller Assistant, which in itself is not new, like I’ve actually been using a Seller Assistant for over a year. And like one of my cool use cases kind of here, here’s a quick strategy for everybody now is, is there’s a lot of compliance issues that people have on Amazon, like there’s words that you’re not supposed to use in your listing and things that could get you suspended. But there’s not like an official list of those. So like somebody always never completely knew, like, is this okay? Or am I like towing the line here? But what I would do is I would put my ASIN into a Seller Assistant say, Hey, can you just give me an audit on this listing? Is there anything that’s kind of like, yellow light, like a little bit dangerous. And so like, I’ve been I’ve loved Seller Assistant, but now it’s so much more powerful, for sure. And it actually can actually take action, you can like program it to like do stuff on your behalf.
Bradley Sutton:
Along those lines, it’s not just natively inside of Amazon. Did you hear what’s coming? What kind of collab? I guess you could say-
Andrea:
The collab of the century with Anthropic. Yes. And we we had them on stage. My mind was blown with that as well. I mean, that’s huge. And I know that a lot of sellers are super excited about that.
Bradley Sutton:
I’ve been using Claude for a while. And a lot of people are comfortable with cloud, they know it. And so it’s like, hey, yeah, the Seller Assistant is good. But I have so many operations and SOPs that I do in Claude. I wish I could just integrate it. Well, Amazon’s like, say less. Oh, we got you covered. And so now it’s still in beta, I guess I don’t have access to it yet. But I’ve seen the like demos of it, where you’re just gonna be able to get your Amazon data in Claude and in Helium 10. You’ve been able to do that. But imagine like now you have the helium 10 MCP, you can get all the Helium 10 data. And now on top of that, you can bring in all the data points extra that Amazon has and combine it. And then with Claude’s, like smartness or intelligence, I don’t know how to describe that. Now Claude can just take all that data and take it to the next level. So that’s gonna be super exciting, I think for sellers.
Andrea:
I think they also mentioned about it being free for the first year for all sellers, right?
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, that and what was the word of the Amazon? Amazon Quick? Yeah. So it’s like Amazon even has its own, you know, separate AI that you’re gonna be able to use that’s free, you know, like, Claude, all these other things they cost, they cost, I don’t even know how much they cost my company pays for, for me, but but, hey, well, maybe you don’t want to go invest in cloud or something else use Amazon Quick.
Andrea:
And can I just say I’ve been so at Amazon, we’ve been using quick for a bit now. And it is so much better than anything else I’ve been using. So I think it’s, and they’re gonna only keep getting better. So now that it’s going to be something that sellers can use, they’re gonna love it. I love it. So it’s gonna make life a lot easier for them as well.
Bradley Sutton:
I don’t remember where they said to sign up. But what I assume is you can just use the Seller Assistant inside of Amazon say, Hey, where can I sign up for quick because I did take a note that you have until December 31, to take advantage of that that one year offer. So guys sign up before December 31.
Andrea:
You know what, I also think what is going to be huge is going global just got a lot easier. Because a lot of the sellers, a lot of the entrepreneurs I talked about, that’s their North Star, they want to go global. And it used to be a lot of steps and it felt very overwhelming and like another workflow, another job itself. Now it just got a lot easier. Do you know the specifics of that?
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, so like AGL and then that department, they had so many new like features and things like that for shipping and stuff, you know, like before, when you’re using Amazon shipping, it’s like use, you know, maybe I can pay up for my factory, and then I can go directly to Amazon. All right. And then now my inventory goes into FBA. Great. That’s how it always been working. But now, first of all, I saw the stat that Amazon just became the number one freight forwarder from Asia to North America, like the AGL, like that’s kind of crazy. Like you don’t even people don’t think of Amazon as like a freight carrier, but they’re moving so much freight now they’re the number one carrier. But then now there’s new options where I can have the inventory go from my factory.
Bradley Sutton:
But I can have it like me, I actually don’t know if you knew this, I have my own warehouse at my house, like for my Amazon visits.
Andrea:
I did not know that. Is it the coffins still?
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, my warehouse is full of coffin shelves and workbooks. And actually, I have some like children’s workbooks too. Now that you have a family.
Andrea:
I have to look it up and get that.
Bradley Sutton:
But now before like, I haven’t used AGL before, because I have my own warehouse. And my option was I had to send it to Amazon. But now I can actually import from China using AGL. And it can actually come to my warehouse. Or if I’m using a 3PL warehouse, it can actually go to the 3PL warehouse. And so that’s like a new way to kind of like, you know, bring global to local, I guess you could say, pretty cool stuff.
Andrea:
And I know that that’s attached also to or maybe I’m wrong about this. Saving money and it gets easier, you’re a lot more protected now. I think that’s also one of the big takeaways I got from this.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, yeah, you’re gonna be able to save money by not having to like use multiple different carriers and things like that. And time too, you know, because Amazon is so efficient at everything logistics wise, you know, like, oh my god, obviously, I live in the middle of nowhere. If I have a warehouse behind my house, I used to have pigs and goats in my farm. So it’s not like I’m living in downtown, you know, San Diego or something. But I’ve ordered stuff. And I’ve gotten it within an hour living where I do. So like Amazon obviously knows logistics. And so everybody knows how efficient they are and just regular deliveries. But now they’re taking that know how I guess for their global network. And that’s why they said I think the stat they gave out was now shipping from China’s like 20% shorter, and things like that. So really great innovations. I actually interviewed somebody from AGL, we’re gonna have a separate podcast about that to go a little bit more into detail on all the things coming there. So every year, there’s always like some spontaneous applause that comes out when they’re making these announcements, right. And that’s how you know, like, organically remember last year, we talked about that. So I totally forgot there was a moment like that this year, where, where the speaker had to stop because people just started randomly applauding.
Bradley Sutton:
Well, it was about compliance, and the products getting suspended. So like before, like if there was, you know, obviously, if something’s wrong with your, your product, you know, like it would just get you should be suspended. But sometimes it would, there’d be errors, you’d like maybe there was a mistake, and the AI like might have accidentally triggered it. But what would happen was you’re listening would go down, and then you can go and appeal it. And then Amazon would figure out, okay, yeah, you’re good to go. Or maybe, oh, I need to fix this in my listening, and then it’ll go back. But now the thing that had the applause was, hey, if you’re listening goes down, or if you’re if you’re listening, has a trigger that warrants suspension, it’s not going to be suspended right away, you’ll get like a notice. And there’ll be like, there’ll be an appeal process. But let me ask you something. Are you a sports fan at all?
Andrea:
Oh, no.
Bradley Sutton:
You don’t watch it. You and your husband don’t watch any sports,
Andrea:
Whatever you say, I’m sure I’m not gonna know.
Bradley Sutton:
It’s gonna be a total sport. Okay, let me explain something to you. If you had a favorite sport between like baseball, basketball, and foot, like American football, what would it be? And I’m gonna pick that one to go with.
Andrea:
I’m gonna choose baseball.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, so on baseball, so there is something if you watch a baseball game now, you’ll notice sometimes a batter is at the bat. It’s called a strike or something like that. He’ll tap his head. And so he’s not like saying, Oh, I’m good. What this means is, is he wants to trigger like a challenge, like a replay challenge. Like no, that wasn’t a strike. That was a ball, right? And so he’ll do this and but you can’t it’s like you don’t get unlimited. So you get like two. And then if you’re right, and the umpires decision is overturned, then you get like that challenge back. Right? And so Amazon now has something like this challenge, this baseball challenge, where let’s say your product gets suspended, or your account gets suspended. You can throw this chat, you can go like this to Amazon and say, Hey, I need to challenge this. And here’s my thing. Why? And then you get three of these. But then if you win the challenge, right? If no, yeah, you prove that no, you didn’t violate this, you get that challenge back. So there’s a sports reference for all the sports.
Andrea:
That was a great analogy. And I don’t even follow sports that well. But I understood it. Yeah, I understand.
Bradley Sutton:
All the baseball fans out there. Hopefully, hopefully got it.
Andrea:
And if you wish I would have chosen the other sports. I’m sorry.
Bradley Sutton:
No worries. No worries.
Andrea:
You know, I was kind of excited that we were going to talk because one thing I wanted you to break down for me, and I don’t know if I’m putting you on the spot if you don’t know the answer to this, but I know they mentioned Amazon lending, and there was a number attached to it 5 million. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Bradley Sutton:
I remember they announced Amazon lending. I don’t remember what the 5 million was about that. What was that about?
Andrea:
I think it was that they have loans that go up to 5 million, if I’m not mistaken.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, that would make sense. I’ve gotten loans from Amazon lending before. And there is very limited options before like I either had one company and I had to like if I liked it, I could go for it. But now today, I think what they announced was there’s a bunch more different options to get Amazon lending. And it’s not like only certain people qualify. Like I remember I qualified, but then there would be times where I didn’t have an offer because I don’t know if my metrics were bad, or I wasn’t a big enough seller at the time, where I couldn’t get Amazon lending if I wanted to. But something in the outside was like, hey, you know what, everybody’s all sellers will be eligible to apply for the Amazon lending to help their cash flow.
Andrea:
That’s amazing too, right? Because I think that’s one of the biggest pain points for a lot of sellers as well. Okay, so we’ve hit some of the very big things. I’m very excited for where this is going and how easier it is. The barrier of entry got even lower now. I also know that you can now manage everything and all the channels in one place, as you were saying, and instead of having to be clicking on different buttons and going into different sites and apps and all the things you can do it all in one place. Because you’re an Amazon seller, tell me a little bit about how that might impact your life now.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, that’s actually been a change. I remember back in the day, the first accelerates when I would speak on stage, like, I don’t know what the general direction was. But I remember, like they were like, hey, hey, don’t mention other like, you know, platforms and things like that. Now, you know, I remember like Shopify, you know, came in to speak on Amazon stage a couple years ago. And now, like on stage, you would see stuff on the board where it’s a TikTok shop this and Walmart that why it’s because with Amazon now you can actually fulfill your orders on TikTok shop. So like maybe I’ve got all my inventory and FBA. And now I take my my FBA product and I want to offer on TikTok shop, I want to offer on Walmart, I can use multi channel fulfillment to do that. And I can one of the announcements today was, I can even have now prime shipping. So multi channel fulfillment before it was, I don’t want to call it slow shipping. I mean, still regular shipping will take like five to seven days, maybe.
Bradley Sutton:
But you know, Amazon prime customers were all spoiled. I’m sure you have prime yourself and you’ve gotten stuff within two hours or a day and stuff like that.
Andrea:
Yes.
Bradley Sutton:
Now I could sell as an Amazon seller, I can have my product on TikTok shop, and then turn on for the MCF, the prime shipping. And then basically, the customer who’s ordering from TikTok shop will get prime delivery, they could get it within like hours or even like a day or two, even in remote locations. And so that’s something new that has not been available, because usually MCF was like five, six days.
Andrea:
That’s wild to me too, because I haven’t been on TikTok shop a lot, I think maybe one or two buys, and they took a while to get here. And I’m already used to like, prime shipping. So that’s great. Also, I can’t believe I forgot to mention this earlier, but there was a birthday. And there was a birthday of some of one of the Amazon tools resources that gets mentioned the most on This is Small Business on the podcast, every single time I talked to a seller, they mentioned FBA, and it turned 20 this year.
Bradley Sutton:
That’s crazy. We always talking to you offline about my son how he’s about to get married. Yeah, he’s almost 22. So I guess when he was about two years old, FBA, you know, came to his guess. And it was funny how he was talking on stage about that in the beginning. It wasn’t high adoption. I think the number he threw out was that nowadays, FBA sends more products in one day than the first three years of FBA combined. In one day, I think that was a stat, somebody stat, stat check me if I was wrong, but I think I got that stat right. But that was my book, because in the beginning, it was such a new concept, where it’s like, no, like, if I get an order, I’m gonna ship it like, wait, I got all my product, and I’ve got 1000s of dollars invested in this. And I’m just supposed to be expected to send it to some warehouse and trust that they’re going to get it to customers. It was like a foreign concept. But now FBA is such like a mainstream concept.
Andrea:
If you’re not doing that, what are you doing? Because every time I talk to a seller, they’re like, they’re like, well, that’s what I use the most. And it’s, I have to talk about this tool, obviously. But now it’s almost like, you’re not, you’re not doing FBA, like, then what are you doing? How are you getting, you know, so that it turned 20. That’s wild that a lot of people it took time for, for it to be so mainstream, but 20 years. Congratulations to the FBA team.
Bradley Sutton:
Amazon is all about the acronyms. And so there’s a new AC or ASCS, Amazon Supply Chain Services. I hope I got that right. But it’s interesting where we’re not just talking about, oh, let’s move my FBA products from China to US. Or hey, let me talk about delivering my products for me to Amazon or from Amazon to my customer from Amazon to TikTok shop customer. But now, you can even hire Amazon to move your raw materials. Like maybe I’m ordering in bulk 100,000 boxes that I’m going to package my stuff in. I can actually have Amazon as a freight carrier, you know, kind of get in my supply chain and deliver that to me. So that’s just kind of huge.
So different.
Andrea:
Yeah, that’s huge. Yeah. That’s amazing.
Bradley Sutton:
Again, to me, that’s important. Like we talked about, yeah, Amazon’s expertise is in logistics. And so if you can apply that in other places, it’s just going to be a game winners, like save money and, and not have to worry so much about, you know, having 75 different carriers and stuff like that.
Andrea:
Talk about beginning to end. It really is. You’re going to be able to do it all there.
Bradley Sutton:
So you’re talking about Alexa and how customers can discover the products. For me, I still use the traditional search bar and keywords and stuff. But here’s, this has been my like, kind of like philosophy all this time is before, if you know what product you want, like, I’m just seeing here tennis balls, like if I want tennis balls, I don’t need AI to search for tennis balls, I’ll just type into the Amazon search bar tennis balls, and I’ll get tennis balls. But then for example, these tennis balls I’m looking at are being used to I guess, be able to drag these like light stands that we have here. So maybe I didn’t know, like, that’s not a normal thing unless you’re a, you know, sound professional or lighting professional to know that that’s what you use. But maybe I’m like a newer lighting professional or a, you know, working in a department. And I’m like, hey, what can I use to put on the bottom of these light stands so that I can drag it around. And so that I can like me, it’s not going to make noise and things like that. That whole thing I just said is not something you type into an Amazon search. No. So in the old days, what would I do? The old 2010s? When I was young? No.
Bradley Sutton:
But you know, back in the days, right? I might I don’t know about you. But like, maybe I’ll look for YouTube, or I’ll look for blogs, or I’ll Google something, right? And then and then do that work. But now, no, that kind of search, even though it won’t go into Amazon search bar, you could type it into Amazon Alexa. And then you discover that oh, people are using tennis balls for this now I need tennis balls, like, try and think back for you. Something that you didn’t know exactly what you want to be was like a gift for like a 50th wedding anniversary. Like I’ve never been to a 50th wedding anniversary. But can you think of anything that before in the old days, you might have gone and I keep saying it is funny when I say old days. But like where you didn’t know the keyword to search for and then you had to go through this long journey to even like do some research into it. Can you think of an example like that?
Andrea:
I can think of one just because this morning someone asked me about my jeans, my pants, and they were like, where are they from? And I said, I, I removed the tag. And I was like, I don’t remember where I bought these. And I was like, well, but I’m sure you can just give it some sort of specific asks to AI and that it’ll tell you right, like, it’s jeans with like a little thing or something like that. And to me, I feel like if I was looking for, I’m not going to just put jeans, I’m going to put like, hey, I’m looking for something that is like a half jeans, half skirt, and it ties around my waist.
Bradley Sutton:
See, that’s not a keyword. Like, no, never type that into a search.
Andrea:
Of course not. So I feel like, is that a good example maybe?
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, that’s a perfect example. Yeah. And I bet you if you do that right now with Alexa, like guys, take what she just said, type it into Alexa, I bet you would come up with these cool pants. Everybody was just mentioning how cool those, those pants are. I’m not sure if I could pull off that. I like it. I like it.
Andrea:
It’s like a half like jeans, skirt thing. Very comfortable. That’s all you need to know.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah. But that’s like, you don’t always know exactly what you want. You have an idea in your mind, or somebody may have said it or some, you know, somebody saw like, who was that very stylish woman walking around at Accelerate? Here’s what she was wearing. Let me try and describe. I have no idea what it was, but I like it. You know, and so like, yeah, like before, like, it would be hard to figure out those. I’m sure there’s a name for that. So then, right, but you don’t know,
Andrea:
I would not know.
Bradley Sutton:
I wouldn’t know either. But I bet Alexa would. And so I would just describe it. And then now all of a sudden, oh, it’s a sarong pants, or what it’s called. And so that’s just something that didn’t exist on Amazon before, what would happen is, maybe we would sell a product, like maybe there’s a seller on Amazon now that is selling, of course, are sellers that sell it. But in the old days, the person who’s looking for this would have gone to Google or a search engine to search for it. And then maybe they find it on another website or something. And guess what, me as an Amazon seller, I just lost that sale. Because that person had to take that search off. But now hopefully, as more people use Alexa, they’ll take that kind of like discovery of this concept, and they’ll be able to stay on Amazon, find my listing that has these pants and buy it.
Andrea:
You know that I was just thinking that the other day because I mean, you’re a new parent. When you’re a new parent, you’ll order anything and everything. Like, I feel like I have to buy this one thing because well, these other babies are doing great with it. So now I have to get it right. And the other day, I remember going into the Amazon app. And instead of putting it in the search bar, me asking Alexa, like, what are people buying for this specific thing that I need for my baby? And it giving me a list of and I was like, I’m mind blown, because I didn’t go into a search engine, I stayed in the app. And it helped me out. So the fact that this is going to get even easier for me as a customer is blowing my mind right now.
Bradley Sutton:
Yep. Going back, you know, my mind always like flips between a million different things. But going back to the Seller Assistant, I remember another thing that they mentioned, that when you are launching a product, you know, to interact with the Seller Assistant, it’ll help you find out what different programs you qualify for. There’s so many programs that Amazon offers for newer sellers or brand new products that you don’t even know that you can enroll in. But you on your podcast have interviewed a lot of people who are in different Amazon programs. What are some of these programs that people should be using the Seller Assistant to see if they can if they qualify for it?
Andrea:
So there are some certificates that you can apply to with third parties. And then you use that certificate and then go to Amazon and then you get a badge on your store. So one of them would be being a woman owned business being a minority owned business. And you would be surprised how many customers really take that into account when they are scrolling on the app. And they’re looking at a lot of products that look very similar, but they see that badge and they want to support women owned minority owned, and they click so they can get a certification through a third party and apply to have it on their store.
Bradley Sutton:
So Seller Assistant guys, start talking to Seller Assistant, find out which ones you might qualify for and it’ll help you see some of these third party places that you can go and and do that.
Andrea:
Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Great way to use it. So also another thing that blew my mind that a seller was explaining to me yesterday was that now you can talk as well to your assistant and find out what are other similar products in your category? What are their pricing strategies? What are they doing? And kind of brainstorm with them with what should you be doing better? What is the competition, if you will, doing so that you can stand out as well. I also think that changes the game because you do have to get smarter with not just how good your product is, but how you show up in the store and pricing is everything as well. Right. So I think this is also going to be a great tool for sellers who even sellers who are just starting out who are like, what number should I be putting to this? I think that’s what it is.
Bradley Sutton:
I had to like kind of like jet out to go to another session. And that was probably the one that I missed. But now you just jogged my memory about, you know, talking about kind of like modeling out ideas about products. There was another announcement about like Product Opportunity Explorer.
Andrea:
That’s the one I was trying to get to.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, that is Product Opportunity Explorer. validate a product idea.
Andrea:
That was also a very Oh, yeah. Talk about beginning to end. Yeah, literally, you’re thinking about ideas from scratch. And then you have everything you need to take it from there. That’s why that was also wild to me.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, because of Helium 10, just because of the way my mind works. I love data. I’ve always loved data. I think you should be people should be making data driven decisions. And there but there are certain data points in Amazon that you have to already be selling in that category for you to get that data. Like search query performance, I need to be selling a product. If I want coffin shelf keyword data, I need to be selling a coffin shelf. And then Amazon is going to give me that data. If I want category level data of pet food, like a better treat who we both know Boris over there. Hey, I need to be selling pet food to get that category level data. But in this validate a product idea, and I interviewed Ami, she’s gonna come on the podcast, too, to talk a little bit more in depth. Now, I don’t even have to be selling like maybe I’m thinking about being a competitor of Boris, don’t worry, I’m not coming for you, but I’m thinking about selling dog treats. Yeah, I could just go in and like kind of articulate my idea about the kind of product I’m coming out with and maybe even make some some fake bullet points of what a listing could be. And then it’s going to go and give me a whole bunch of category information and things like that. So that’s something that’s newer for sellers that you don’t have to wait anymore and actually be selling in there to to get some of these data points as cool.
Andrea:
To close this out, I we’ve talked about so many different things, and it is getting easier. What is going to help someone stand out then? What would you tell a seller who is starting to use all of these tools? Because even with the pricing comparisons, then what is going to help you stand out?
Bradley Sutton:
And you just made me think of something else that was announced I forgot, but it’s a perfect segue. But differentiation is important and your branding is important to me like creating a brand and having a brand story have a mission statement. And you can do that through the brand store. And that’s something that also was announced. I actually did a couple of sessions on the like, this is literally my own session. I didn’t even remember about this. But for brand stores now, you can like tailor make your brand store like for a new customer. Like if you were like looking for baby, you know, clothes, right? And you go to a brand store, if right in your face, they were showing you their most expensive products and subscribe and save and this and that you had never heard of the brand, you might be like, I’m not sure if I’m I need to know more about this brand, what it’s about, you know, I’m putting it on my baby, you know, like, it’s got to be the best and what kind of materials and so no, that’s not a great store experience. But then, if you had a storefront that hey, showed the mission statement, hey, these are, you know, organic, you know, materials and, you know, sustainable, and things like that.
Bradley Sutton:
Now all of a sudden, you’re trusting the brand a little bit more. And so that’s something that’s important. So first of all, like you said, your to your question, having a good brand, and a good brand experience is important on Amazon, before selling on Amazon means I just have a listing, here’s my list, here’s my images. But now you can actually have a brand store and a whole identity.
Andrea:
And you can tailor it depending on-
Bradley Sutton:
Yes, tailor, that’s the new thing where I just could have one store before and I’ve always had, I still haven’t even used this yet, but I’ve only had one store. But now with AI, with this new feature in Sponsor Brand Store, guys, check this out. If you haven’t checked out yet, it’ll be on a future podcast, I’ll go more into depth. But I could say, hey, if it’s a new customer, show this version of my store. If it’s a customer who’s been buying for me for 12 months, show this part of the store.
Andrea:
Wow.I mean, as a customer myself, that’s gonna be very helpful, I think, as well. I also want to get into the emotional part of this of like, you have to be even more obsessed, you have to be even more passionate, you have to be like the sellers that I talked to on This is Small Business, what makes them stand out to me and the reason I think a lot of the success comes even with all the tools that are coming out, and how easy it is for you to get started and have that journey in the Amazon store, is that they’re obsessed. They’re always on their phones, they’re always refreshing, they’re always seeing what they can do better. They’re always thinking about, why am I here? Their story, how they show up as well as the founders. And I think all of that, plus the tools that are at their disposal, will really make a difference in how they show up for their customers.
Bradley Sutton:
100%. So anyways, like we said, this is our fourth year. It’s been great to see you through different stages of our life. I got my son getting married, you became a mother.
Andrea:
You have seen me through so many stages. You’ve seen me through getting married, before starting to date my husband, not with a baby. You’ve seen me through all the stages. That’s amazing.
Bradley Sutton:
So this was a great four years, great 20 years for Amazon. Let’s do this for another four years.
Andrea:
Yes, I hope to see you again next year.Thank you so much.
Bradley Sutton:
Alright, so what was your guys’ favorite announcement if you were there or if you saw this? Are you underwhelmed this year? Are you overwhelmed with everything and not sure what you should implement? Let me know in the comments below. And now let’s get to a couple of quick hitting interviews from different Amazonians.
Bradley Sutton:
Alright, so we’re here at the Seller Partner Plugin. Is that another acronym? SPP almost, we could almost say. But this is a new plugin that’s for Amazon sellers. For somebody like me, a seller like me, I’m already using Claude. I’m using MCP with Helium 10. How is this plugin going to help sellers like me who is already leveraging these kind of like AI?
Yeah, it’s a great question. So we know that today 90% of Amazon selling partners are already using third party AI tools to run their businesses. And our vision is that sellers can use the AI tool of their choice. And we make it easy for them to do so. You know, for the first time, sellers can bring the intelligence behind Seller Assistant, its reasoning, its recommendations, and its ability to take action into the AI tools they already use every day. Their AI doesn’t just read from their Amazon business, it can act on it the same way that Seller Assistant does in Seller Central. And every plugin interaction is protected by clear boundaries and complete audit trails. We’re committed to expanding secure plugin connections to additional third party AI tools over time, because meeting sellers where they are, and they already work is the most important thing we can do. Besides bringing our guardrails and security standards along with us. We think that’s the best way to help sellers grow.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome. Thanks for developing it.
Thanks.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, we’re here at Amazon Accelerate and walking by the different Amazon booths. And we’re here at the Returns and Recommerce booth. That might be a department maybe you’ve never heard of. So first of all, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your department?
Lu:
Yeah, I’m Lu. I work for Worldwide Return and Recommerce seller service team. Our team is working to maximize your recovery value once the item is returned to Amazon.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, so then basically we are talking, I’m just assuming this recommerce might mean, hey, something was returned. And now maybe we need to put it back into inventory so it can be back for sale. Is that a accurate assessment?
Lu:
Yes, you’re correct. Generally, once your return item arrive at Amazon Return Center, we will grade it and decide whether it’s resellable or not. We are now developing different programs to help you maximize your recovery value so that you can reduce your cost.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, is there a, do I have to enroll into this service? Is it automatic? What are the costs involved? Things like that?
Lu:
Yeah, that’s a very good question. Actually, this year, we are going to reimagine the grade and resell program. We now replace the refurbishment with restore to new. And this program, along with the grade and resell, sell as used, can help you recover the value from the return items. And all these programs will help you restock the return items back to the shelf. And for both the program, our cost is $1.5 to $4.1 per unit.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, so obviously, we’re here in America. So I assume, you know, this is, of course, for Amazon USA. Are there other global marketplaces where this program is available? Or is it only in North America now?
Lu:
For grade and resell, it’s available in both North America and EU. We haven’t launched a grade and resell restore to new in Canada yet. And also, we are planning to expanding to the more marketplaces.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. So I think maybe a concern some sellers might have is, hey, how do I know if Amazon is making the same decision as I’m making? Like, hey, this product is good enough to go back in inventory? Or no, this product should not go into inventory? Do we just have to rely on your decision? Or is there a way for us to kind of like, kind of customize your decision making?
Lu:
Oh, yeah, that’s a very good question. This year, we’re also going to launch a new product called customized grading. So in this program, you can generally offer the inputs to us to decide the grading criteria. And this will help us maximize your value currently, our grade and resell restore to new help you recover 70% of the net recovery value, and grade and resell used help you recover about 50 to 60%. With this new grading criteria, we can customize the grading according to your requests, and then meanwhile, help you recover as much value as possible.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, so maybe I’m interested, I want to sign up, or at least I want to get more information in Seller Central, where can I go to get more information about this program?
Lu:
You can find through search in the help page, we share more information about eligibility for the program and how we charge. And you can also enroll in Seller Central through setting, supply chain setting to enroll for grade and resell programs. You can also go to the other setting to offer the grading criteria to help us better customize the grading results.
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Want to absolutely start crushing it on eCommerce and make more money? Follow these steps for helpful resources to get started:
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- Want to Verify Your Product Idea? Use Xray in our Chrome extension to check how lucrative your next product idea is with over a dozen metrics of data! Download the Helium 10 Chrome Extension.
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- Does Amazon Owe YOU Money? Find Out for FREE! If you have been selling for over a year on Amazon, you may be owed money for lost or damaged inventory and not even know it. Get a FREE refund report to see how much you’re owed!
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