Post-Prime Day News: Amazon Security, AI Shopping, Walmart Updates, and the Profitability Test

This week’s Selling on Giants News and Updates moves beyond the Prime Day revenue headlines and focuses on what marketplace operators should do next.

Prime Day generated record online spending, but smaller baskets and value-focused purchasing made profitability more important than top-line growth. Consumers continued spending, but they concentrated more heavily on lower-priced essentials, beauty, supplements, grocery, and products they could easily justify buying.

For Amazon and Walmart sellers, the real question is not whether sales increased.

It is whether the event left the business stronger.

In this episode, Mr. Will covers:

• The post-Prime Day profitability test: Why sellers should review contribution margin by ASIN, TACoS, new-to-brand customers, inventory burn, organic ranking, Subscribe and Save growth, and repeat-purchase opportunities instead of celebrating revenue alone.
• Why record sales can hide weak economics: A strong promotional event can still damage profitability when discounts deepen, advertising costs rise, baskets shrink, and customers concentrate around lower-ticket products.
• Amazon Seller Central passkeys: Amazon is expanding passkey access across Seller Central, allowing sellers to authenticate through Face ID, fingerprints, or device PINs. The rollout is also a reminder to audit users, administrator access, agency permissions, and backup account owners.
• Amazon Business delivery requirements: Seller-fulfilled offers serving Amazon Business customers will need to meet a new Business Hour Delivery Rate standard. FBM sellers should review carrier selection, warehouse cutoffs, handling times, delivery settings, and shipping automation before enforcement begins.
• Why Amazon’s marketplace is becoming more professional: Third-party sellers still represent the majority of Amazon unit sales, but stricter compliance, higher advertising costs, stronger security requirements, and measurable fulfillment standards continue raising the barrier to entry.
• Prime Day advertising beyond Sponsored Products: Prime Day continued evolving into a full-funnel media event across Sponsored Brands, video, Amazon DSP, connected television, and external traffic. Sellers need to separate branded demand capture from real customer acquisition.
• AI shopping and machine-readable product data: Shopping assistants are becoming another interface between consumers and products. Titles, attributes, specifications, images, reviews, availability, pricing, and product feeds increasingly influence whether AI can understand and recommend a product.
• Walmart’s July integration deadline: Walmart is moving Solution Provider integrations toward OAuth two point oh. Sellers should confirm that feed tools, inventory platforms, ERP systems, agencies, and internal applications are prepared before existing access methods are retired.
• Walmart and Amazon race toward instant commerce: Flipkart Minutes and Amazon Now show how localized inventory and quick commerce are pushing delivery expectations from days toward minutes. The long-term advantage may come from better inventory placement, not simply better advertising.
• Target Plus and curated marketplace growth: Target continues expanding its invitation-only marketplace with established brands while maintaining a more selective operating model than Amazon or Walmart.
• North American trade uncertainty: The United States did not agree to renew the USMCA in its current form during the latest review. No immediate changes have occurred, but brands sourcing from Mexico or Canada should continue monitoring negotiations and modeling tariff exposure.

The bigger takeaway:

The market is not getting easier.

It is getting more operational.

The brands best positioned for the second half of the year will have cleaner account access, stronger profitability reporting, structured product data, reliable fulfillment, better inventory placement, and enough discipline to separate promotional revenue from durable growth.

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