#534 – Prime Day Winners, New Seller Security & Review Policy Changes | Weekly Buzz 7/2/26
Audio version above. Video version below
We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Manager of Education and Strategy, Carrie. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.
Amazon’s Prime Day drives online sales in the US up 9.3%
https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-prime-day-online-us-sales-numbers-grow-2026/823973/
Amazon Prime Day Live Tracker 2026 by Numerator
https://www.numerator.com/prime-day/
New Claude Skill by Helium 10
https://pages.helium10.com/kwskillopt?utm_source=carrie&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=keyword_skill
Passkeys coming to Amazon Seller Central in July
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHR0FUOTRBWlVaWkVTQTQ4
TikTok Shop Incentives Review Policy Update
https://seller-us.tiktok.com/university/essay?knowledge_id=4451321470682882&lang=en
New business hour delivery requirement for seller-fulfilled shipments
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHOU1VTVdMTURLWjRNWFlC
In episode 534 of the AM/PM Podcast and Weekly Buzz, Carrie covers:
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 00:44 – Prime Day 4 Day Event Results are In
- 04:23 – New Claude Skill by Helium 10
- 06:16 – Passkeys Coming to Seller Central
- 08:22 – TikTok Shop Incentives Review Policy Update
- 10:19 – Amazon Review Download Hack Using TikTok Shop
- 11:47 – New Business Hour Delivery Required for Seller Fulfilled Shipments
Transcript
Carrie Miller:
The full four-day Prime Day event results are in, Seller Central is becoming more secure, and TikTok Shop updates its incentivized review policy. All this and more on this week’s episode of The Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the AM-PM Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Kari Miller, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the goings-on in the Amazon, TikTok Shop, and e-commerce world. We let you know what new features Helium 10 has, and we also give you a training tip of the week. So let’s get started and see what’s buzzing.
Carrie Miller:
All right, so let’s go ahead and get into this first piece of news. I actually have two articles to share, and this is about the Prime Day results, okay? So this is the full four-day Prime Day event. Last week, I talked about the first day, but this week, I’m going to talk about all four days. This four-day Prime Day event was very much a success for Amazon and shows that e-commerce is still very much alive and well. So according to Adobe Analytics, this year’s Prime Day event generated an estimated $26.4 billion in U.S. online sales, making it one of the biggest online shopping events ever and representing roughly 9% year-over-year growth compared to last year. So that’s larger than many Black Friday and Cyber Monday events combined.
Carrie Miller:
It says, in comparison to $26.4 billion in online spend during this recent Prime Day, consumers spent about $32.45 billion across Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday last year. So it’s definitely creeping up with being a little bit in comparison to that. So that’s pretty amazing. And then what’s interesting is, though, that while the total spend increased, individual shoppers actually spent less. So research from Numerator, and I’m actually sure you can see the link in our description, they actually found that the average Prime Day order dropped to about $48 per order, down from more than $53 last year, and the average household spending also fell from $156 to $143. So you can actually see that in these charts and on these graphs.
Carrie Miller:
So the question is, how do you have a record-breaking sales with consumers spending less? Well, the answer is that shoppers are becoming more intentional. So instead of loading up on expensive electronics and impulse purchases, consumers focused heavily on essentials and replenishment items. So some of the top-selling products this year included protein shakes, so you can see that Premier Protein Shakes was top, then electrolyte packets, which is the Liquid IV here, cat treats, household items, and health and wellness products. So nearly 70% of products purchased sold for under $20. Another major trend was that shoppers were spreading purchases across multiple orders.
Carrie Miller:
So nearly two-thirds of households placed two or more separate orders during the event. So this shows that consumers are still shopping heavily, but are being very much more deliberate where they spend their money. So we also saw Prime Day continue to evolve from an Amazon-only event into an industry-wide shopping holiday. So nearly half of Prime Day shoppers said they also shopped or planned to shop at competing places like Walmart and Target during the same period. For Amazon sellers, the takeaway, what is it? Well, consumers are still spending, and e-commerce is still very much alive, but they’re spending more intentionally.
Carrie Miller:
Essentials, consumables, and products with very clear everyday value performed particularly well this year. While shoppers looked for opportunities to save on purchases, they were already planning to make. So if there were some splurges, it seems like they were probably already going to buy those, but they’re getting and waiting for the discount. Prime Day also continues to reinforce an important trend that shoppers are becoming increasingly deal-savvy. They’re comparing prices across retailers, placing multiple smaller orders, and waiting for major shopping events to make purchases. So for brands, that means strong offers, smart promotions, and clear value propositions matter more than ever.
Carrie Miller:
So that’s basically what happened during Prime Day and the four-day event. I’m curious to know how well you all did this Prime Day. If you want to put it in the comments, was it bigger than ever? Was it less? Was it neutral? Just let me know what happened. I know it’s big for Amazon, but the question I would like to know is third-party sellers like our audience and smaller brands, maybe some bigger brands as well, but how was it for you? All right, next up, I want to talk about a skill that I have to share with you for Claude, and this utilizes Helium 10 data. Now, we actually are coming out with a series of really great skills that are going to help you with your business to save a lot of time, and you can utilize Helium 10 data and Amazon data for these, but this first one I actually did, and you can download it.
Carrie Miller:
The link is in the description, but basically, you’re going to be able to find the top keywords and the top opportunity keywords in your niche. So basically, you upload the skill, and then it’s going to show you this analysis. So right here, you can see this. I did leggings for women, and you can see the top keywords are shown here, but I separated the brand names out. So I asked this Claude to basically create the skill where the branded terms are actually separate so that you can kind of have different strategies for those because I know for myself, if I wanted to do like a conquesting campaign going after other brands, those are great to kind of have in the list, but also maybe you don’t want to target those. You want just a full list of keywords.
Carrie Miller:
We’ve got opportunity keywords right here. They don’t have any branded names in it, and then you can see the opportunity keywords that are branded. So you can see all of these basically divided by top keywords, then top branded keywords, then top opportunity keywords, and then branded opportunity keywords. So that’s kind of the gist of this first skill. All you need to do is download a reverse ASIN on Cerebro, and you can do it with multiple of your competitors, and then you just specify your ASIN. So just say, hey, this is my ASIN, and these are my competitors, and then run the skill, and you’ll be able to see the top keywords for your niche, the top opportunities, and basically the opportunities are where maybe one or two of your competitors are dominating, but you haven’t yet.
Carrie Miller:
So that’s a really exciting skill. So again, if you want to download it, you can download it. We have some that are coming out every week, so we have some great ways that you can help manage your business and just optimize without having to spend hours and hours doing it. Okay, we’re going to go ahead and go into the next piece of news, and this is very near and dear to my heart, and the reason why I think it’s very important to me is because two years ago, I actually had somebody hack into my Amazon account, and they actually stole five-figure payout. Somehow, they were able to get into our account. They were able to change the bank account and then steal the payout, which was really, really difficult, and Amazon didn’t help.
Carrie Miller:
They didn’t even help investigate. They didn’t even address the case, and the local law enforcement, there wasn’t really anything that they could do, so it was really very upsetting, and it was a big loss, and I’ve actually talked to other brands who’ve actually lost even in the six figures of their payout, so this is a very serious issue, so I think everyone should listen closely to what Amazon is now basically giving you, and that is basically they’re investing now in more security. Starting this month, they are rolling out passkeys to all Seller Central accounts, so passkeys are passwordless sign-in methods that use your device’s built-in security features like Face ID, fingerprint authentication, or your device PIN instead of traditional passwords. The biggest advantage is that passkeys can’t be phished, stolen, or shared the way passwords and verification codes can. Since their credentials are tied directly to your device, even sophisticated phishing attempts become less effective.
Carrie Miller:
Amazon says passkeys will be available to all sellers immediately and will be mandatory for some accounts later this year, so this isn’t something you’ll want to ignore until the last minute, so the good news is that setup takes less than two minutes. Simply head to login and settings inside Seller Central, select create passkey, and follow the device’s security prompts. I know security updates aren’t always the most exciting news stories, but if spending two minutes setting up a passkey can prevent even one seller from experiencing what we went through, it’s really worth it.
Carrie Miller:
Unauthorized changes to your account, and you don’t even know it, that’s a huge problem. You could lose tons and tons of money. One that I know that you can get is called YubiKey, and it’s basically like this little device thing, and it gives you a PIN every time, and that’s what you can use to log in, so I would definitely look into that if you are wanting more security for your account. You want to make sure to protect your payouts.
Carrie Miller:
Next up, we have news from TikTok Shop, so TikTok Shop sellers, there is an important policy update that you need to be aware of because TikTok just released a new review policy, and they’re making it very clear that review manipulation will not be tolerated. First of all, sellers can no longer offer incentives in exchange for reviews unless they’re using TikTok Shop’s official incentivized review feature, so that means no gift cards, free products, refunds, rebates, discounts, or any other rewards in exchange for customer feedback. TikTok is also cracking down on attempts to influence reviews in other ways, so sellers cannot ask only happy customers. I know a lot of people used to do this and be like, hey, if you’re happy, leave a review. If you’re not satisfied, contact us, so kind of help to avoid those negative reviews, but you definitely can’t do that on TikTok now.
Carrie Miller:
You can’t request that customers remove or change negative reviews. You also can’t discourage customers from leaving reviews or repeatedly ask customers to leave feedback after purchase, and another major update is that TikTok has officially introduced a negative review rate or an NRR metric that tracks the percentage of orders receiving one or two star reviews over the previous 60 days, so those negative reviews are broken down into three categories, the actual product issues, the logistical issues, and customer service issues, so why does this matter to sellers? Well, because a high negative review rate can lead to violation points, listing removals, or even restrictions on your ability to sell on TikTok shop, so I would say the biggest takeaway is that TikTok shop is continuing to mature. I know it was kind of the wild, wild west.
Carrie Miller:
You could do these things, but you want to be more careful now. They’re really growing as an e-commerce platform, and much like Amazon, they’re moving towards stricter marketplace standards focused on customer trust, authentic reviews, and seller accountability, so sellers should focus on product quality, fulfillment, and customer experience because TikTok is making it increasingly difficult to shortcut your way to better reviews. All right, next up, we have our strategy of the week with Shivali, so go ahead and take it away, Shivali.
Shivali Patel:
How to download thousands of reviews potentially from Amazon products. Now, you might be wondering, didn’t Amazon block people from downloading reviews, and you would be right. There’s no tool that can actually show you this information. However, you can still run review insights. You just won’t be able to export that data or see the two to three word phrases that are most mentioned, but there’s a trick that a lot of people don’t know about just yet, and that is if that Amazon product is also on TikTok shop, what you can do is you can open up that product listing page on TikTok and then run Helium 10’s Chrome extension. We are the only tool right now that has a Chrome extension for TikTok shop, and this will show you all the things that you know and love like 30-day revenue, GMV, the ratings, and you’ll still be able to see the stuff that you used to be able to see on Amazon, which is the two to three word phrases, and you’ll be able to export out that information.
Shivali Patel:
Meaning, if you are somebody who wants to use that information in conjunction with say an AI tool, any sort of large learning model, you’d be able to do that by checking out if that product is on TikTok shop, downloading that information, and then taking it from there. So guys, if you are interested in analyzing reviews or just seeing what people are talking about, this might be one of those strategies that you’ll want to use, and like I said, you can’t find it with any other software tool.
Carrie Miller:
Thank you so much for that strategy of the week, Shivali. And last but not least, we’re going to go ahead and talk about something else that Amazon put out, and that’s about seller fulfilled delivery rates. Amazon is introducing a new performance metric that seller fulfilled sellers need to pay attention to, especially if you sell to Amazon business customers. Starting September 30th, sellers will be required to maintain a business hour delivery rate of at least 90%. And this metric measures the percentage of your seller fulfilled orders to Amazon business customers that are delivered during the customer’s actual operating hours over a rolling 14 day period. Now, why does this matter?
Carrie Miller:
Well, businesses aren’t always open to receive packages at 8 p.m. or even later on a Friday night or on weekends, and missed deliveries can lead to delays, re-delivery attempts, and frustrated customers. So Amazon wants to ensure packages are arriving when businesses are actually open to accept them. If your business hour delivery rate falls below 90% by September 30th, Amazon says they’ll notify you and provide recommendations to improve. However, if your performance doesn’t recover by October 30th, your seller fulfilled offers could be removed from Amazon business listings. The good news is that this only impacts seller fulfilled offers sold to Amazon business customers. FBA won’t be affected and neither will your standard consumer listings.
Carrie Miller:
Amazon is recommending that sellers use reliable carriers, maintain accurate handling times, and take advantage of tools like automated handling time, shipping settings automation, and buying shipping, all of which can help ensure compliance with the new requirements. So if you’re fulfilling your own orders and selling to business customers, now is the time to start monitoring your business hour delivery rate and account health before this becomes an enforced metric later this year. All right. That is all I have for you today on this week’s episode of The Weekly Buzz. So we’ll see you again next week to see what’s buzzing. Bye everyone.
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