eCommerce News Update: Amazon Buy Box Changes, Walmart AI Shopping, and Q4 Prep

This week’s Selling on Giants News and Updates focuses on what marketplace operators should do now that Prime Day is behind us and Q4 planning is already underway.

Amazon is opening holiday deal submissions, changing how sellers compete for the Featured Offer, expanding Seller Central passkeys, adding B2B pallet delivery, and pushing Amazon DSP deeper into full-funnel media. Walmart is doubling down on value, AI shopping, and marketplace maturity, while broader retail updates continue pointing toward one theme:

The second half of the year will reward operators with cleaner systems, better data, stronger inventory planning, and sharper execution.

In this episode, Mr. Will covers:

Amazon Featured Offer changes

Amazon is removing the separate Featured Offer eligibility requirement for more sellers. That does not mean every seller can win the Buy Box. It means more offers can compete, while price, delivery speed, account health, inventory, and customer experience remain the deciding factors.

Holiday deal submissions are already open

Amazon opened holiday deal submissions on July eighth, including Best Deals, Lightning Deals, and Prime Exclusive Discounts. Q4 planning is not a future project anymore. Brands need to identify hero ASINs, confirm inventory, model margins, and submit eligible deals early.

Amazon holiday fulfillment guidance

Amazon’s holiday fulfillment timelines and peak season fee guidance reinforce that Q4 is usually won before October. Sellers should work backward from inbound deadlines, manufacturing schedules, freight timelines, AWD utilization, and FBA replenishment plans.

Seller Central passkeys for secondary users

Amazon is expanding passkeys for secondary users, making account access more secure for employees, agencies, contractors, and partners. Sellers should audit user permissions, remove outdated access, and eliminate shared logins.

Amazon Business pallet delivery

Amazon Business introduced pallet delivery for eligible FBM orders, giving commercial buyers a better option for larger shipments. This matters for brands selling industrial, healthcare, foodservice, janitorial, office, or bulk products.

Amazon DSP expands into Spotify podcast ads

Amazon DSP now supports buying Spotify podcast inventory, showing that Amazon Advertising continues moving beyond marketplace search into a broader full-funnel media ecosystem.

Prime Day advertising lessons

Post-event analysis shows the best advertisers were not simply the biggest spenders. They adjusted budgets, watched pacing, protected inventory, and optimized during the event instead of waiting for next-day reports.

AI across eCommerce software

AI is becoming embedded into product content, merchandising, customer engagement, marketing automation, and workflow tools. The opportunity is not using AI for the sake of it. The opportunity is using AI to reduce repetitive work while protecting quality and operator judgment.

Walmart price cuts and consumer value pressure

Walmart and Sam’s Club are lowering prices across seasonal grocery and household staples, reinforcing that shoppers are still spending but remain highly value-conscious.

Walmart Sparky and AI shopping

Walmart’s Sparky AI assistant continues showing how AI shopping tools may influence discovery, comparison, and conversion. Sellers need complete product data, strong images, accurate attributes, reviews, and clear positioning so AI systems can understand and recommend their products.

USPS, trade policy, Google Merchant Center, and Costco

Shipping changes, trade policy hearings, Google product feed updates, and Costco’s June sales results all point to the same operating reality: costs, data quality, sourcing, and value communication matter more heading into the second half of the year.

The bigger takeaway:

The second half of 2026 is not about chasing every platform update.

It is about building a cleaner operating system.

Better inventory planning. Cleaner product data. Stronger access controls. Sharper promotional strategy. Smarter ad pacing. Better shipping math. More disciplined pricing. And a clear answer to the question every shopper is asking:

Why should I buy this product now, from this brand, instead of the alternative?

Follow Selling on Giants for weekly operator-level breakdowns on Amazon, Walmart, retail media, AI commerce, marketplace strategy, and what platform updates actually mean for sellers.

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Selling on Giants. I'm your host, Mr. Will, and this week we are in that awkward but important stretch after Prime Day where the event is over, the easy headlines are gone, and the real operators start doing the work that actually affects the second half of the year. The theme this week is pretty clear. Amazon is already pushing sellers toward Q4. Walmart is doubling down on value and AI-assisted shopping. Retail media is moving farther away from simple search ads. And the consumer is still spending, but only when the value is obvious. So if last week was about surviving deal week, this week is about what you do with the signals. Let's start with Amazon's featured offer update because this is one of those changes that sounds simple, but it has real marketplace implications. Amazon is removing the separate featured offer eligibility requirement for more sellers. In plain English, more offers can now compete for featured offer placement without first passing that old eligibility gate. That does not mean everyone gets the buy box. And yes, most of us still call it the buy box, even if Amazon prefers featured offer. Amazon is still evaluating price, delivery speed, inventory availability, account health, customer experience, and fulfillment performance. The difference is that Amazon appears to be moving away from a hard qualification gate and letting more offers enter the algorithmic competition directly. For strong operators, that can create opportunity. If you had ASINs that previously showed as not featured off or eligible, those listings are worth watching. You may now be able to compete where you could not before. But the important word is compete. This is not a free pass. If your pricing is off, your delivery promise is weak, your seller metrics are messy, or your inventory is unreliable, the algorithm is not going to reward you because the gate changed. My read is that Amazon is simplifying the rule structure while putting even more faith in its ranking systems. That sounds good until you remember what it means. The platform is not becoming less demanding. It is becoming more algorithmic. The seller takeaway is simple. Review the ASINs that were previously blocked from featured offer competition, but do not confuse access with advantage. The advantage still comes from pricing discipline, fulfillment performance, customer experience, and clean operations. That connects directly to the next Amazon story. Holiday deal submissions are already open. This is the part of the calendar where weaker sellers are still recovering from prime day and stronger sellers are already thinking about prime big deal days, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday inventory. Amazon opened holiday deal submissions on July 8th, which means Q4 planning is no longer a future project. It is active right now. That matters because merchandising space does not magically appear in November. Amazon wants sellers to submit best deals, lightning deals, and prime exclusive discounts early. The brands that wait until fall usually have fewer options, more inventory pressure, and less flexibility on pricing. This is where a lot of brands get the holiday season wrong. They think the Q4 plan starts with promotions. It does not. It starts with inventory, then margin, then promotional strategy, then advertising. If the inventory is not there, the ad plan does not matter. If the margin cannot support the discount, the revenue does not matter. If the ASIN is not healthy, the deal placement does not save it. Amazon also released holiday fulfillment guidance and peak season fee information, which reinforces the same point. Sellers need to work backward from inbound deadlines, manufacturing timelines, freight schedules, AWD plans, and FBA receiving risk. Every year, someone waits too long, ships too late, gets stuck in receiving, and then acts surprised when the promotion underperforms. There's nothing surprising about being late. The operator move now is to identify Q4 hero ASINs, confirm inventory needs, understand deal eligibility, model profitability after holiday fees, and decide which products actually deserve promotion. Do not promote the whole catalog because it makes the spreadsheet look full. Promote the products that can win, stay in stock, and protect the business. Amazon is also continuing its account security push with pass keys for secondary users. This may not sound exciting, but it is important. Seller Central is not just a login, it controls listings, inventory, advertising, brand registry, financial disbursements, user permissions, reporting, and in many cases the entire marketplace business. Amazon is telling sellers to stop relying on shared credentials and move users toward individual secondary accounts with pass keys where available. That matters for brands working with agencies, contractors, former employees, internal teams, and outside software providers. If you have not audited Seller Central Access recently, do it now. Remove old users, check permissions, confirm who has admin access, make sure every person has their own login, make sure agency access is appropriate, make sure there is a backup admin who can actually access the account if the primary user is unavailable. We see brands protect trademarks, ensure inventory, and negotiate contracts, but then they leave old users sitting inside Seller Central with access they no longer need. That is not a process issue. That is a risk issue. Marketplace security is becoming enterprise grade because these accounts are now serious business assets. Treat access like infrastructure. Amazon business also had an interesting update this week with pallet delivery for larger commercial orders. Eligible fulfilled by merchant Amazon business orders can now use pallet delivery when orders contain more than one unit, weigh more than 500 pounds, or exceed 30 cubic feet, and ship to a commercial address. This is a very B2B update, and that is exactly why it matters. Amazon business is not just consumer Amazon with bigger carts. Business buyers purchase differently. They care about receiving windows, bulk shipments, freight efficiency, purchase orders, repeat ordering, and operational predictability. For brands selling industrial products, janitorial supplies, healthcare products, food service items, office products, bulk consumables, or anything that moves in larger quantities, pallet delivery can improve both shipping efficiency and average order value. Amazon reported strong pilot adoption among eligible buyers, and that makes sense. A commercial buyer receiving a large order often does not want a pile of parcel shipments arriving in pieces. They want the order delivered in a way that matches how their business operates. The seller takeaway is to review your Amazon business assortment. If you have products that could qualify, look at shipping templates, freight pricing, handling times, and whether palette delivery improves the customer experience or the margin. B2B growth is one of the quieter opportunities on Amazon, but it rewards sellers who understand operational buying behavior, not just consumer conversion. Now let's move into advertising because Amazon DSP is expanding again, this time through Spotify Podcast Inventory. Advertisers can now buy Spotify podcast ads through Amazon DSP, which is another step in Amazon turning its advertising platform into a broader media buying ecosystem. This is not for every seller. A smaller brand still struggling to make sponsored products profitable does not need to run into podcast advertising because it sounds cool. But for larger brands using DSP, this gives Amazon another upper funnel channel inside the same platform where audience strategy and retail measurement can connect. The bigger signal is that retail media is moving beyond marketplace search. Sponsored products still capture high intent demand. They are not going away. But the larger platforms are building full funnel systems. Amazon wants display, streaming TV, audio, video, and retail conversion data connected inside one advertising environment. This changes how sellers should think about advertising maturity. Search captures demand. Upper funnel media creates demand. The hard part is knowing when the business is ready for each layer. Prime Day reporting showed the same thing. The strongest advertisers were not always the ones that simply spent the most. They were the ones that optimized throughout the event, shifted budgets based on performance, protected inventory, and adjusted in real time instead of waiting for next day reporting. That is an important lesson for Prime Big Deal Days in Q4. Major shopping events are no longer set it and forget it campaign windows. They are live operating environments, budget pacing, placement performance, inventory availability, creative pricing, and day part behavior all need to be watched while the event is happening. A beautiful report after the event does not help if the budget capped during peak demand. This is where AI enters the conversation again, but not in the lazy headline chasing way. Practical e-commerce's latest tools roundup reinforced that AI is being embedded across e-commerce software, including merchandising, product content, customer engagement, marketing automation, workflow automation, and operations. The conversation is no longer should we use AI? That question is old. The real question is, where does AI create measurable operating leverage without lowering quality? That is the filter sellers should use. Does the tool improve catalog quality? Does it make reporting faster? Does it reduce repetitive work? Does it help the team make better decisions? Does it improve creative throughput? Does it help customer service? Does it help inventory or pricing workflows? If the answer is no, then it is not a strategy. It is a toy with a subscription. AI should create time for better operator judgment. It should not replace judgment. This is where Bellovic spends a lot of time with brands. The problem is not that sellers lack tools. Most teams have too many tools, too many dashboards, and not enough clarity on what to do next. Bellivix has helped brands sell over $500 million on Amazon, and we are a verified ad partner. But the real value is turning marketplace complexity into a clear operating plan across advertising, catalog, creative, inventory, and retail media. If your team is moving from Prime Day into Q4 and you need sharper execution across Amazon, Walmart, and broader marketplaces, visit Bellovic.com. Now let's shift to Walmart because Walmart and Sam's Club are leaning hard into value this summer. Walmart announced price reductions across a range of seasonal grocery and household staples, including beef, produce, beverages, ice cream, snacks, and summer entertaining products. Sam's Club also reduced pricing on hundreds of items. This is a consumer signal as much as a retail story. Walmart is not waiting for shoppers to feel better. It is using price to drive traffic and reinforce its value position. For sellers, the implication is pricing pressure. If Walmart is aggressively promoting summer essentials, marketplace sellers need to monitor competitive pricing, contribution margin, ad efficiency, and where the category is moving. That does not mean you chase every rollback. Reacting to every promotion is how margin disappears. But you do need to understand when Walmart's value push affects your category, your buy box, your conversion rate, or your retail media efficiency. The consumer is still spending, but the value bar is higher. Walmart knows that, Costco knows that, and the strongest retailers are building their calendars around it. Walmart's Sparky shopping assistant also keeps moving the AI story forward. Walmart is reporting early success with Sparky helping shoppers discover products, compare options, receive recommendations, and complete purchases more efficiently. This is still early, but the pattern is clear across the whole industry. Amazon has AI-assisted shopping. Google is pushing AI shopping experiences. OpenAI is building commerce capability. Walmart has Sparky. Search is no longer the only product discovery behavior that matters. If a shopper asks an AI assistant what to buy, the assistant needs to understand the product. That brings us back to the same operator discipline. Titles, attributes, images, bullet points, product specifications, reviews, pricing, availability, and product descriptions all matter. AI cannot recommend products it does not understand. This is why product data is becoming strategic infrastructure. Not admin work, not something to clean up once a year. Infrastructure. Now, zooming out, USPS implemented mid-year shipping changes this month, including rate and rule updates that can affect shipping costs depending on service, package dimensions, and negotiated rates. For high volume sellers, small changes spread across thousands of shipments can change contribution margin meaningfully. This is another example of boring math that serious operators respect. Shipping templates, package dimensions, carrier mix, fulfillment methods, negotiated rates, and packaging decisions all affect profitability. A few cents per unit may not matter on one order, but across thousands of orders it becomes real money. The operator move is to review shipping costs now, not during Q4. Look at your highest volume package profiles. Look at dimensional weight exposure. Look at whether packaging can be improved. Look at whether certain products should move through different fulfillment methods. Logistics savings are not as exciting as new ad creative, but they often drop straight to margin. Trade policy is also still on the board. The USTR held public hearings on proposed Section 301 actions related to forced labor investigations. No new tariffs took effect from the hearings themselves, but the process matters because sourcing risk is becoming more continuous. Brands importing internationally need to understand country of origin exposure, supplier diversification, tariff sensitivity, compliance documentation, and landed cost risk. Do not make sourcing decisions based on headlines alone, but do not ignore the direction either. Trade policy is no longer a once-in-a-while concern. It is part of operating a global supply chain. Google Merchant Center updates point in the same direction as the AI shopping stories. Google continues improving Merchant Center and product feed capabilities as shopping becomes more AI driven. Whether customers discover products on Google, Amazon, Walmart, or through an AI assistant, structured product data is the common denominator. That means product feeds deserve more respect. Missing attributes, inconsistent titles, weak images, poor product identifiers, and incomplete specifications are not just technical issues, they are visibility issues. Finally, Costco's June sales results gave us another read on the consumer. Costco continued showing positive sales growth, but investor reaction showed that expectations are high and the market is watching for signs of slowing momentum. For operators, the consumer takeaway is still consistent. Shoppers are spending, but they are disciplined. They reward value, quality, trust, and clear differentiation. That is the same pattern we saw in prime day results, Walmarts, summer price cuts, and the continued strength of warehouse clubs. Customers are not gone. They are more deliberate. When you connect the whole week together, the pattern is clear. Amazon is giving more sellers access to featured offer competition, but still rewarding execution. Holiday planning is already active. Seller Central Access is becoming more secure. Amazon business is getting more B2B friendly. Amazon DSP is expanding into podcast inventory. AI is embedding across e-commerce software. Walmart is pushing value while Sparky moves AI shopping forward. USPS and trade policy remind us that fulfillment and sourcing costs still matter. Google is making product feeds more important. Costco shows the consumer is spending, but with discipline. The second half of the year is not about chasing every update. It is about building a cleaner operating system, better inventory planning, cleaner product data, stronger access controls, sharper promotional strategy, smarter ad pacing, better shipping math, more disciplined pricing, and a clear answer to the question every customer is asking, whether they type it into Amazon, ask Sparky, use Google, or compare offers across retailers. Why should I buy this product now from this brand instead of the alternative? If your business can answer that clearly, the second half of the year has opportunity. If it cannot, more traffic will only expose the problem faster. If this episode helped you focus on what matters, share it with someone on your team who is responsible for turning marketplace updates into action. And if you are getting value from selling on giants, subscribe and leave a review so more operators can find the show. Mr. Will here, signing off from Selling on Giants. Q4 planning has already started, so let's execute like it.