Amazon Ads Under Fire, Shipping Hikes & TikTok Fuels Amazon Sales

Your Q4 promotion can look profitable today and lose money before the first holiday order reaches the customer.

In this September 1, 2026 episode of Selling on Giants, Will Haire, cofounder of BellaVix, breaks down the marketplace changes putting pressure on ecommerce margins, from holiday shipping surcharges and Canadian tariffs to Amazon’s advertising auction lawsuit and TikTok’s influence on Amazon sales.

The connection is bigger than any individual update. Brands cannot manage advertising, inventory, fulfillment, and promotions separately and expect the numbers to work together.

Why are holiday shipping costs a bigger risk this year?

USPS, UPS, and FedEx are introducing overlapping peak season increases. These charges can stack with fuel, residential, dimensional weight, and delivery area fees, making low-priced and oversized products especially vulnerable. Will explains why brands need to review contribution margin by product, package, and destination before committing to holiday discounts or free shipping offers.

What does the FTC lawsuit mean for Amazon advertisers?

The FTC and 22 states allege that Amazon inflated advertising auction prices through undisclosed pricing practices. Amazon denies the allegations, which have not been decided by a court. Will examines the transparency issue and why the filing alone is not a reason to cut advertising. Budget decisions still need to reflect conversion, incrementality, TACoS, and contribution profit. Read the Reuters coverage.

Does TikTok Shop drive sales on Amazon?

TikTok can create product discovery while Amazon captures the purchase. The episode explores research showing that shoppers often move to Amazon for price comparison, reviews, Prime delivery, and checkout. Will explains how to compare creator activity with Amazon branded searches, sessions, conversion, and sales without automatically crediting Amazon advertising for demand generated elsewhere.

Why is Amazon discounting fulfillment for TikTok Shop?

Amazon is offering eligible TikTok Shop orders a 35% discount on Standard and Expedited Multichannel Fulfillment rates through a 12-month promotion. Shared inventory can help brands respond to creator-driven demand without maintaining separate stock pools. The operating question is whether the model remains profitable after the discount ends, including creator commissions, platform fees, returns, and integration costs.

How do Canada’s new tariffs affect marketplace sellers?

Canada’s announced retaliatory tariffs take effect September 8 and cover approximately $20 billion in annual U.S. imports. Exposure depends on product classification and legal country of origin, not simply the location of the shipping warehouse. Will discusses why brands need to review inventory in transit, marketplace pricing, and promotional commitments with their customs broker or importer of record. Read the Reuters coverage.

Should sellers pay for Amazon Sub Same Day delivery?

Faster delivery can improve conversion, but a sales increase does not automatically mean a profit increase. Will examines Amazon’s optional paid placement opportunity for selected FBA sellers and explains why tests should measure incremental orders and contribution profit, including whether customers would have purchased with standard Prime delivery anyway.

What is changing with Amazon seller-fulfilled enforcement?

Amazon is narrowing enforcement for certain seller-fulfilled performance problems to the affected offer. That can reduce disruption across healthy listings, but losing one hero product can still create a significant revenue problem. Sellers need offer-level monitoring rather than relying only on account-wide performance averages.

The takeaway: build one operating plan that connects where demand starts, what it costs to convert and fulfill, and how much profit remains after every platform takes its share.

Selling on Giants delivers operator-focused ecommerce news and marketplace strategy for brands growing on Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, and beyond.

Follow Selling on Giants for weekly operator-level coverage of Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, AI commerce, retail media, tariffs, marketplace strategy, and the changes actually affecting eCommerce operators.

Subscribe to Selling on Giants for weekly insights that go beyond headlines and focus on what actually impacts your business.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Your fourth quarter promotion can look profitable today and lose money before the first holiday order ever reaches the customer. This week, shipping costs are rising across every major carrier. A new tariff dispute is creating cross-border risk. Amazon's advertising auctions are facing a major legal challenge, and TikTok is creating demand that Amazon often captures. These stories may look separate, but together they show how quickly margin disappears when brands manage each channel in isolation. Welcome back to Selling on Giants, the podcast where we break down what is changing across Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, and the broader e-commerce marketplace, then explain what it actually means for the operators responsible for growth and profitability. I'm Will Hare, co-founder of Belavix. Every week we cut through the headlines and focus on the decisions brands need to make now. Let's start with shipping, because every major carrier is moving in the same direction at the same time. USPS has proposed an average holiday increase of approximately 6% across Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select. Those rates are expected to begin October 4th and continue through January 17th, pending approval. UPS starts applying additional handling and oversized package surcharges on September 27th. Broader residential demand charges begin October 25th, and during the heaviest holiday period, the added charge reaches 75 cents per ground residential package, nearly $12 for additional handling, and more than $117 for large packages. FedEx is following a similar schedule. The important point is that these charges do not operate in isolation. They can stack on top of fuel surcharges, residential fees, dimensional weight, delivery area charges, and whatever discount you are already giving the customer. That creates the most risk for low-price products, oversized products, and packages traveling across multiple zones. A free shipping offer that works in September can quietly destroy contribution margin in November. This is also not just a direct-to-consumer problem. It affects brands using seller-fulfilled Amazon offers, Walmart seller-fulfilled orders, TikTok shop, wholesale parcel shipping, and any fulfillment model where the brand absorbs the last mile cost. Before finalizing fourth quarter promotions, recalculate contribution margin by package size, weight, carrier, and destination. Look at the actual order economics, not an account-wide shipping average. If one oversized product is responsible for most of the exposure, the answer may be a bundle, a higher free shipping threshold, a different fulfillment method, or a price adjustment. Peak transportation pricing is no longer a temporary holiday surprise. It is an annual cost that needs to be built into the plan. And shipping is only one part of the landed cost problem. Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs on approximately $20 billion in annual imports from the United States. The tariffs are scheduled to take effect September 8th, with rates ranging from 15% to 50% across hundreds of product categories. The list includes steel, aluminum, furniture, electronics, prepared foods, cosmetics, household goods, agricultural equipment, and selected outdoor products. For brands selling through Amazon Canada, Walmart Canada, distributors, retailers, or direct shipping, the immediate question is not whether the company is American. The real question is the legal country of origin for each product. A product can ship from a United States warehouse without legally qualifying as United States origin. It can also be assembled somewhere else and receive different treatment depending on where the substantial transformation occurred. That is why the tariff review needs to happen at the product level. Ask the customs broker or importer of record to map exposure by SKU and classification code. Then review inventory already in transit, September promotions, wholesale agreements, and marketplace pricing. The purchase order may already be complete, but if the product clears customs after the effective date, the final landed cost can still change. North American expansion can no longer be treated like a simple extension of the domestic business. Canada requires the same classification, origin, margin, and compliance planning brands already expect when sourcing overseas. While those costs are moving upward, the customer journey is becoming more fragmented. New consumer research suggests that when a product gains traction on TikTok, the resulting Amazon sales can reach one and a half to three times the brand's TikTok shop volume. That makes sense when you look at where shoppers prefer to complete the purchase. Fewer than 10% selected TikTok shop as their preferred destination after discovering a product through social content. Nearly 49% selected Amazon. TikTok may create the desire, but Amazon still provides the familiar checkout, prime delivery, reviews, price comparison, and trust that help the customer finish the decision. This means brands are probably undervaluing TikTok when they judge it only through TikTok shop sales. Some of the return appears later through Amazon branded searches, sessions, organic sales, and stronger advertising conversion. It also means Amazon advertising can receive credit for demand it did not create. If creator content takes off on TikTok and branded Amazon sales rise, that does not automatically mean the branded advertising campaign suddenly became more effective. The campaign may simply be harvesting traffic created somewhere else. Brands need to compare TikTok content spikes with Amazon search activity, sessions, conversion, and branded sales. Price parity also matters. More than one-third of shoppers who abandoned a TikTok purchase said they wanted to compare prices elsewhere, and another large group found a better offer. If the Amazon price, coupon, reviews, or delivery promise is stronger, the shopper has a very good reason to leave TikTok and buy from Amazon instead. Amazon understands this behavior, which helps explain why it is now offering eligible sellers 35% off standard and expedited multi-channel fulfillment rates for TikTok shop orders. The promotion lasts 12 months and allows brands to use the same inventory for Amazon FBA and TikTok shop. That can reduce the forecasting risk created when a creator suddenly drives an unexpected order spike. But model the economics after the discount ends. A fulfillment structure that works with a 35% subsidy can become unattractive once standard pricing returns. Amazon is helping sellers fulfill TikTok orders because Amazon does not need to own every transaction. It can still make money by becoming the infrastructure underneath the transaction. This kind of cross-platform complexity is exactly where brands begin losing control of the operating plan. One team owns TikTok, another team owns Amazon, finance sees separate reports, and nobody can explain where the demand started or which channel actually created the profit. At Bellavics, we have helped brands sell more than $500 million on Amazon. And as a verified ad partner, we focus on hands-on strategies that turn marketplace complexity into a clear operating plan. If your team has data but still struggles to decide what to do next, visit Bellovic.com. Now, we need to talk about the cost of visibility on Amazon because the Federal Trade Commission and 22 states have filed a lawsuit challenging the mechanics inside Amazon search advertising auctions. The complaint alleges that Amazon used undisclosed minimum pricing adjustments for approximately seven years, affecting more than 1 million brands and sellers and generating tens of billions of dollars in additional advertising costs. These are allegations. The case has not been decided. Amazon advertising continues operating normally, and there is currently no compensation process for advertisers. So this is not a reason to shut down campaigns heading into the fourth quarter. That would be an emotional reaction to a legal filing, not an operating decision. The reason this matters is transparency. Advertisers participate in an auction, but they have limited visibility into the mechanisms that determine the final clearing price. Sellers usually assume rising cost per click comes from competition, seasonality, or aggressive bidding. If the allegations are proven, the platform's own pricing controls may also be part of that equation. For now, preserve historical advertising reports and billing data. Keep making decisions based on conversion, tacos, contribution profit, and incrementality. Then watch for changes to auction disclosures, billing practices, or potential advertiser remedies. The larger issue is that retail media has become too important to remain a black box forever. When paid placement becomes necessary to maintain organic visibility, the platform is no longer selling optional advertising. It is setting the price of access to the customer. Amazon is also turning delivery speed into another paid growth lever. Selected FBA sellers can now submit a maximum per unit bid to place additional products into Amazon's sub-same day network. Amazon says products in the network can generate 12% higher sales than products receiving standard FBA delivery in eligible areas. A 12% sales increase sounds attractive, but sales lift is not the same as incremental profit. Some of those customers may have purchased with standard prime delivery anyway. In that situation, the seller pays an additional fee for an order that was already going to convert. Test this only on products with strong margins, stable inventory, and a real speed sensitive use case. Measure incremental units and contribution profit, not just the change in top line sales. Delivery speed is becoming paid merchandising. Sellers already pay for the click, the placement, the fulfillment, and the promotion. Now they may also pay for a stronger delivery promise. There is at least one positive operational change on the seller-fulfilled side. Amazon is narrowing the enforcement impact when an individual seller-fulfilled offer creates an account health risk. Instead of immediately placing the broader account at risk, Amazon can deactivate the specific offer responsible for the problem while leaving healthy listings active. That reduces the blast radius, but it does not make the violation harmless. If the affected offer is a hero product or a major source of seasonal revenue, one deactivation can still hurt the entire business. Low volume products are particularly vulnerable because only a few late shipments or cancellations can create a sharp percentage swing. Monitor cancellation rate, late shipment rate, order defect rate, and on-time delivery at the offer level. An acceptable account wide average can hide a product that is already approaching the limit. The pattern across all of these changes is pretty clear. Platforms and service providers are becoming more precise about where they charge, where they subsidize, and where they enforce. Carriers charge more during the weeks when sellers have the least flexibility. Amazon subsidizes TikTok fulfillment because it wants to own the infrastructure. It offers faster delivery as a paid conversion lever, and it narrows enforcement to the individual offer while continuing to hold the seller accountable. The mistake is looking at each update as a separate announcement. The operator sees one connected system. Shipping affects promotion economics, tariffs affect landed cost, TikTok affects Amazon demand, advertising affects discoverability, delivery speed affects conversion, account health determines whether the offer remains available at all. That is the real job heading into the fourth quarter. Do not optimize each platform in isolation. Build one operating plan that explains where demand comes from, what it costs to fulfill, and how much profit remains after every platform takes its share. That is it for this week's news and updates. If this episode helps you prepare for the fourth quarter, subscribe to Selling on Giants and share it with another operator who needs to hear it. Wherever you are tuning in, please take a moment to leave us a rating and review so the Apple Podcast gods can show us a little grace and help more people discover the show. I appreciate you spending part of your week with me. I'm Will Hare, and this is Selling on Giants. Stay focused, protect the margin, and keep building forward.