Send us Fan Mail

This week’s Selling on Giants breaks down the May twenty sixth marketplace updates shaping Amazon sellers, Walmart operators, retail media teams, and eCommerce brands preparing for a more demanding commerce environment.

The theme this week is simple: commerce is becoming more intelligent on the front end, but more demanding on the back end.

Platforms are getting smarter. AI is changing how products are discovered. Walmart is building a serious commerce infrastructure engine. Amazon is preparing sellers for Prime Day return disputes. Supply chain risk is still very real. And consumers are still spending, but far more selectively.

In this episode, we cover:

Amazon SAFE-T claims and Prime Day return risk

Amazon is encouraging sellers to prepare SAFE-T claim workflows ahead of Prime Day. For FBM sellers, Seller Fulfilled Prime, high-ticket items, electronics, and seasonal categories, return fraud and reimbursement disputes are not edge cases. They are part of the operating model.

Why sellers still want buyer blocking tools

Seller Forum discussions show growing frustration around repeat return abuse, fraudulent claims, switcheroo returns, and limited seller-side protection. Amazon continues to prioritize marketplace openness and customer trust, which means sellers need better documentation, margin discipline, and return workflows.

Walmart’s Q1 FY27 results and marketplace growth

Walmart reported strong growth across eCommerce, advertising, marketplace, membership, and store-fulfilled pickup and delivery. The bigger signal is that Walmart is no longer just a traditional retailer adapting to eCommerce. It is becoming a commerce infrastructure platform competing more directly with Amazon.

Why Walmart can no longer be treated as a secondary channel

Walmart Connect, marketplace expansion, fulfillment positioning, membership behavior, and omnichannel logistics are becoming more important. Brands that treat Walmart like an afterthought will fall behind as the platform matures.

Supply chain risk from the Strait of Hormuz

Geopolitical disruption can quickly impact fuel, resin, plastic packaging, food logistics, freight, warehousing, and last-mile delivery economics. eCommerce may feel digital, but the physical supply chain still controls margin.

Retail crime as commerce infrastructure risk

Organized retail crime and cargo theft are no longer only store problems. They affect inventory, marketplaces, unauthorized sellers, pricing stability, brand protection, and sourcing documentation.

AI shopping agents and the future of product discovery

AI agents, ChatGPT product feed ads, Google’s universal commerce protocol, Shopify AI search insights, and Amazon’s shift toward Alexa shopping agents all point in the same direction. AI is becoming the interface layer between customers and products.

Why product data is now strategic infrastructure

Clean titles, complete attributes, accurate pricing, review quality, product feeds, metadata, and cross-platform consistency will become more important as AI systems compare, recommend, and help purchase products.

The consumer is still spending, but more selectively

Recent retail earnings show a consumer that has not disappeared, but has recalibrated. Value, trust, convenience, promotions, and strong positioning matter more, while weak mid-tier products face more pressure.

The bigger takeaway:

The next stage of eCommerce is not just about being better at selling.

It is about being harder to break.

The brands that win will have cleaner data, stronger documentation, tighter margins, better fulfillment, clearer product positioning, and enough operational discipline to survive a market where platforms and customers are both getting more demanding.

Follow Selling on Giants for weekly operator-level breakdowns on Amazon, Walmart, retail media, AI commerce, marketplace strategy, supply chain risk, and what actually changes for brands responsible for growth and profitability.

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

Send us Fan Mail

This episode of Selling on Giants takes a deep look at the business models behind Fanatics and Starter, and why their stories matter far beyond sports merchandise.

Starter became one of the most iconic sports apparel brands of the nineteen nineties. Starter jackets were cultural status symbols across the NFL, NBA, NHL, college sports, and streetwear. The brand had relevance, demand, and identity.

But underneath that cultural momentum was a structural weakness.

Starter relied heavily on wholesale distribution, traditional retail cycles, and slower operational systems. It had brand heat, but it did not fully control the customer relationship, fulfillment speed, or demand response.

Fanatics represents a different model.

Instead of operating like a traditional sports merchandise company, Fanatics built a vertically integrated commerce engine. It controls licensing relationships, manufacturing, ecommerce infrastructure, fulfillment, customer data, and real-time demand response.

That gives Fanatics a major advantage when demand spikes. When a team wins a championship, a player gets traded, or a major sports moment happens, Fanatics can react quickly and capture demand while attention is still high.

This episode breaks down why that matters for modern eCommerce operators.

In this episode, we cover:

The rise and decline of Starter

How Starter became a cultural force, why the brand mattered, and what structural weaknesses made it vulnerable when retail changed.

Why Fanatics built a stronger operating model

Fanatics is not just a merchandise company. It is an infrastructure company built around speed, licensing, fulfillment, and customer data.

Vertical integration as a competitive advantage

The more of the value chain a company controls, the more margin, data, and flexibility it can capture.

Why brand heat is not enough

Cultural relevance can create demand, but infrastructure determines how much of that demand a company actually captures.

What marketplace sellers can learn from this

Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, and DTC brands face the same strategic question: what part of the customer journey do you actually control?

Why infrastructure matters more as markets change

Ad costs rise, fees increase, fulfillment gets more expensive, and platform rules shift. Durable businesses are built to absorb those changes.

The operator takeaway:

Starter had culture, but Fanatics built control.

That is the real lesson.

Strong branding matters, but branding without operational durability becomes fragile. The best eCommerce brands are not just better marketers. They are better system builders.

They understand their supply chain, fulfillment model, data, customer relationship, pricing power, and channel dependency.

As commerce evolves, the advantage is moving toward brands that control more of the infrastructure underneath their growth.

The edge is not in hype. It is in control. Vertical integration. Operational speed. Infrastructure ownership.

If you are building a brand on Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, or across multiple marketplaces, this episode gives you a practical way to think about long-term durability, not just short-term performance.

Follow Selling on Giants for operator-level breakdowns on marketplace strategy, eCommerce growth, retail trends, and the business models shaping the future of commerce.

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

Send us Fan Mail

This week’s Selling on Giants breaks down the May nineteenth eCommerce updates shaping Amazon sellers, marketplace operators, retail media teams, and brands trying to protect margin in a more complex operating environment.

The theme is clear: the brands that win from here are not necessarily doing the most. They are operating the cleanest.

Amazon is tightening expectations around inventory, customer service, intellectual property, and operational discipline. Retail media is becoming a required cost of visibility. AI is changing how products are discovered. Marketplaces are competing through infrastructure, payments, data, and seller workflows.

In this episode, we cover:

Amazon pushes FBA Liquidations as inventory pressure rises

Amazon is promoting FBA Liquidations as a way for sellers to recover some value from excess, idle, unfulfillable, or customer-returned inventory. The hard truth is that recovery rates are usually low, often around five to ten percent of average selling price before fees. The real value is stopping storage fees, aged inventory surcharges, and the financial bleed tied to inventory that should no longer be sitting in FBA.

Buyer satisfaction scoring gets more detailed for FBM sellers

Amazon replaced the old yes or no survey with a one-to-five satisfaction rating for self-fulfilled sellers. This gives sellers more nuanced feedback, but it also raises the bar on measurable customer service quality. Buyer contact rate, response time, and dissatisfaction rate are no longer soft support metrics. They are operating standards.

Amazon reinforces intellectual property compliance

Amazon is increasing education around trademarks, copyrights, patents, counterfeit complaints, sourcing authorization, and Brand Registry. The operator takeaway is simple: sellers need clean documentation before there is a problem. Once an IP complaint hits, the seller is already playing defense.

Amazon cancels planned SP API fees

Amazon reversed planned SP API usage fees that were expected in May twenty twenty six. That matters because SP API powers reporting tools, inventory systems, advertising software, repricers, dashboards, and automation workflows. The reversal protects the economics of third-party tools for now, but sellers should continue watching how Amazon manages data access and ecosystem control.

Etsy launches a ChatGPT shopping experience

Etsy’s ChatGPT-powered shopping experience shows how product discovery is moving from exact keywords toward natural language intent. Instead of searching only by product terms, shoppers can describe style, use case, mood, and preference. That makes clear positioning, strong attributes, descriptive language, and visual storytelling more important.

Agentic marketplaces are coming

AI agents may soon compare products, evaluate reviews, analyze specs, and assist with purchases. That means listings must be understandable to machines as well as humans. Structured data, complete attributes, pricing clarity, review consistency, and trust signals will matter more.

Retail media becomes shelf space

Retailers are increasingly tying visibility, discovery, and merchandising to media spend. Advertising is no longer separate from retail performance. It is becoming part of distribution economics, which means sellers need to evaluate total contribution profit, not isolated ROAS.

Amazon expands self-service measurement studies

Amazon is giving advertisers more direct access to measurement tools. That creates opportunity for better allocation, incrementality analysis, and funnel strategy, but more data only helps when operators know how to interpret it.

The bigger takeaway:

Amazon is becoming less forgiving toward inventory and compliance weakness. Customer service is becoming more measurable. AI is changing how products are found. Marketplaces are competing through infrastructure. Retail media is becoming shelf placement.

The edge is not in hacks. It is in execution, clean data, clear systems, and fast decisions.

Follow Selling on Giants for weekly operator-level breakdowns on Amazon, Walmart, retail media, AI commerce, marketplace strategy, and what actually changes for brands responsible for growth and profitability.

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