Key takeaways from Amazon Accelerate 2024

Amazon Accelerate, the annual seller summit showcasing Amazon's latest tools and opportunities, was a 2.5-day event filled with engaging insights that left sellers and partners excited for the future. In this recap, we'll break down the key takeaways and explore how these themes can help sellers and partners better manage their businesses.

One of Amazon's strengths is that the company continues to try to make it easier for sellers to operate on its platform, and after the latest news about Amazon exiting its 1P relationships with smaller vendors, there will be even more buzz among the industry about the AI releases that were discussed at Accelerate. We know these businesses will need help. Even companies that sell over $30 million on Amazon need partners to help run their businesses, and the number of sellers of this caliber looking for premium partners is growing.

But is Amazon making it easier to run a business as a partner or as a seller? Or is it more complicated? There are significant advancements to better understand the customer journey on the advertising front, and we expect much more from the ads team in the coming months. As for the direction of improving efficiency in operations, it's very appealing on the surface, but it is certainly more of a long-term practice with many nuances that will need to be improved along the way.

So, what were the key themes from Accelerate? 

AI-driven operations

Last year, Amazon introduced some of its AI advancements to assist with listing creation, and this year, they continued to expand those offerings to further simplify seller operations and enhance customer-facing touchpoints, such as video ads and product listings. The key highlights include:

• Project Amelia: Need to ask a question about your business and get real-time performance insights? Or need help with seller support? Now there’s an interactive virtual assistant designed to give sellers a top-level view of their operations. Looking ahead, Amazon envisions AI handling more complex issues and escalations. While the idea of an assistant streamlining problem resolution sounds promising, anyone familiar with managing an Amazon business knows how challenging it can be to resolve issues through seller support. If this tool improves case management, it would be a game-changer. For quick updates on sales and historical comparisons, it’s certainly useful—especially for sellers without an existing reporting solution. However, it currently lacks the depth to measure key performance metrics against defined KPIs. Sellers will still need guidance to interpret their performance and understand what it means for their business progress.
• Video generator: The Amazon Ads video generator enables businesses to create AI-generated video assets for ad campaigns, opening up new opportunities for smaller brands with limited resources. This tool can help drive efficiency in content creation, especially in select categories. Amazon is a performance-driven platform, and tools like this enable quick testing and scaling of learnings. Of course, the quality of the output depends on the inputs and prompts, so teams will need to integrate this solution thoughtfully into their workflows. For brands without dedicated content creation resources, this is a significant time-saver and can give under-promoted products a much-needed boost.
• Listing creation: Last year, Amazon introduced the ability to generate listings directly from a seller's direct-to-consumer website, aiming for greater efficiency. Now, those capabilities have expanded to include auto-generating content from product details. However, there’s a risk that important product attributes might be missed if sellers rely too heavily on auto-generated listings. Additionally, inaccurate information could be created if Amazon’s data overrides what should actually be listed.

It’s great to see Amazon innovating to alleviate some of the pain points sellers experience. However, before jumping in, remember these tools are designed for Amazon at scale, not tailored to your specific business. We recommend testing them to determine how best to incorporate them into your operations. For instance, in our own testing of Amazon’s off-the-shelf features, we’ve encountered competitor names in our content and unrecognizable images in AI-generated visuals. Despite some challenges, we believe the combination of human insight and technology leads to better results, and we’re excited to see where we can further drive efficiency and effectiveness.

We look forward to experimenting with these new releases. As AI continues to evolve, and as Amazon enhances its capabilities, it will be essential for partners like us (and brands) to closely monitor the quality of outputs from these features.

Advertising and customer analytics advancements

There was a strong focus on Amazon Marketing Cloud and its growing ability to provide sellers with greater visibility into performance across the customer journey. These capabilities remain largely underutilized by sellers, and Amazon is creating more opportunities to help them better understand what’s working in their advertising strategies and how it impacts critical metrics like new-to-brand buyers and customer lifetime value (CLTV). We expect to see even more developments related to CLTV, which will become increasingly important as advertising costs and competition on Amazon continue to rise. In addition to offering better insights into advertising effectiveness, Amazon is introducing the Customer Journey Analytics dashboard, providing sellers with more data to understand their customers. This tool will be invaluable when combined with brand-tailored promotions and customer segmentation insights.

Customer centricity for off-Amazon sales

Amazon continues to expand its influence, even for customers who aren't purchasing directly on its marketplace. What does this mean? It means Amazon is enhancing its services to simplify the buying process and offer faster delivery, behaviors that Amazon has long trained consumers to expect.

• MCF improvements: Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) service has seen 70% growth year-over-year, and to strengthen its position as a leading 3PL for brands, it has shortened delivery times. Standard delivery has been reduced from 5 business days to 3, and Expedited delivery from 3 business days to 2, all at no extra cost.
• PayPal + Amazon Buy with Prime: Customers can now connect their Prime and PayPal accounts to receive Prime shipping benefits from merchants that accept Buy with Prime.
• Buy with Prime is also gaining new perks: Merchants using Buy with Prime can now launch Amazon DSP campaigns that leverage Amazon shopping data to drive traffic to their own websites. Additionally, Prime badging will soon be featured in TikTok ads, which is significant as more shoppers turn to TikTok for product inspiration. These updates are big wins for Buy with Prime merchants, as Amazon has historically been focused on keeping customers on its platform. Elevating Buy with Prime communication enhances both Amazon's shipping and delivery services, improving conversion rates and advertising efficiency. Customers expect fast delivery, and if more products become available via Buy with Prime, Amazon will solve a fulfillment issue while helping reduce customer acquisition costs—making the program more attractive for merchants.

Although these advancements are framed as customer-centric, they offer brands opportunities to enhance their customer experience through Amazon's capabilities. These solutions allow Amazon to strengthen its relationship with direct-to-consumer brands by offering services that would otherwise require new partners or service lines. While this is beneficial for brands now, they must also consider the long-term impact of relying on Amazon, especially if fulfillment fees continue to rise. For now, brands can enjoy improved conversions and satisfied customers.

In closing

This isn’t a comprehensive list of everything Amazon shared, but these updates highlight significant opportunities for streamlining operations and helping sellers make smarter decisions, regardless of where they sell. As Amazon continuously evolves, we remain curious to see how these tools add value for our partners. While we’re optimistic, we've also seen some advancements negatively impact our partners, particularly in areas where Amazon tests AI to enhance the shopper experience. It’s all about balancing innovation with a thoughtful strategy, and we’re ready to dive in and find that balance.

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