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?
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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