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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.

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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.

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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.

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In this episode of Selling on Giants, Will sits down with Dawn Chapman, founder and CEO of Lazy Daisy Café and Lazy Daisy Foods, to discuss how a beloved neighborhood café in Toronto evolved into a growing consumer packaged goods brand now carried in over 200 stores across Canada.

Dawn shares the story behind Lazy Daisy’s homemade, farm-inspired food philosophy and how customer demand for their famous buttermilk biscuits sparked the transition from cafe to retail. The conversation explores the challenges of entering the CPG world, the steep learning curve of scaling production, and how the pandemic became an unexpected catalyst for expansion into frozen baked goods.

They also dive into what it takes to maintain product quality while growing nationally, the realities of retail distribution, and why emotional connection and comfort food continue to resonate with consumers. From independent cafe owner to grocery shelves across Canada, Dawn offers an honest look at building a food brand rooted in community, authenticity, and persistence.

Website: https://www.lazydaisyfoods.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lazydaisysto
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP3IbKe-XyPw5RKLncByETg
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@UCP3IbKe-XyPw5RKLncByETg
Pinterest: https://www.tiktok.com/@lazydaisyscafe

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This week’s Selling on Giants breaks down how Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, Meta, and the broader retail ecosystem are moving toward a more structured, automated, and AI-mediated version of commerce.

The theme this week is clear: platforms are not just helping customers buy. They are shaping what customers see, how products are explained, how ads are sequenced, and how brands are measured.

In this episode, we cover:

Amazon Business pushes seller certifications

Amazon is encouraging sellers to upload certifications to improve visibility with B2B buyers. For procurement-driven categories, certifications can become a real advantage by helping sellers appear in searches tied to diversity, compliance, quality, and institutional purchasing requirements.

Lithium battery compliance tightens

Amazon is expanding documentation, testing, inspection, and listing attribute requirements for lithium batteries and battery-powered products. Sellers in electronics, toys, fitness, beauty devices, and rechargeable household products should audit compliance before suppressions happen.

Prime Video ads become sequential

Amazon is turning streaming into a more performance-oriented ad channel by allowing Prime Video ads to change based on what viewers have already seen. Creative strategy now needs to think in sequences, not isolated ads.

Amazon launches “Join the Chat” AI shopping assistance

Product pages are becoming source material for AI. Amazon’s AI can summarize listings and answer shopper questions, which means clear bullets, complete attributes, strong reviews, and consistent positioning matter more than ever.

Google adds more links to AI Overviews

AI search is becoming competitive real estate. Ranking alone is no longer enough. Brands need content that is clear, structured, authoritative, and easy for AI systems to cite.

AI investment is rising, but impact remains uneven

Companies are spending more on AI, but many are not seeing measurable ROI because tools are not the same as operational integration. The advantage still comes from execution, workflow design, and clean data.

Apparel spending softens

Discretionary demand is becoming more selective. Apparel brands and sellers should watch inventory depth, hero Skews, conversion trends, and promotional pressure closely.

Commerce moves into media and content

Sports Illustrated’s shoppable content shows how product discovery is moving beyond marketplaces and into editorial, creator, lifestyle, and entertainment environments.

Walmart expands its beauty strategy

Walmart is investing in premium, trend-driven beauty experiences, showing that retailers are competing on discovery, trust, and category perception, not just price.

Shopify, Meta, and AI agents reshape operations and shopping

Shopify’s ChatGPT and Claude connectors show how ecommerce operations are becoming conversational, while Meta’s AI shopping assistants point to a future where Instagram becomes an even stronger discovery and recommendation layer.

The bigger picture:

Commerce is becoming more AI-mediated, more measurable, more structured, and more controlled by the platforms that own the customer interface.

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

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Amazon has officially confirmed Prime Day for June 2026, and the timeline is tighter than most operators expect. This episode of Selling on Giants is a focused breakdown on how to prepare without overcommitting inventory, overspending on ads, or damaging margins.

This is not about hype. This is about execution.

Key dates you need to know:

• May 27th: Target for minimal shipment splits into FBA
• June 5th: Final window for optimized shipment placement
• Prime Day (June): Expected four-day event with major demand spikes on Day 1 and Day 4

If inventory is not moving now, you are already behind.

Inventory strategy that protects your business:

• Plan for 2.5x your average daily sales velocity across the four-day window
• Push to 3x only if your category supports demand spikes
• Avoid overcommitting inventory that leads to post-event liquidation

Not all products benefit equally from Prime Day. Categories driven by urgency or necessity will not see the same lift as impulse or lifestyle purchases.

Promotions that actually convert:

• Every brand should run something: Lightning Deals, Best Deals, or coupons
• Use coupons if you do not qualify for deals or need margin flexibility
• Test $ off vs % off — higher perceived value often wins

Prime Day is one of the few times where increased traffic can carry promotional performance.

Advertising approach by experience level:

For newer sellers:

• Start with automatic campaigns to build data
• Layer into manual targeting campaigns
• Use Sponsored Products, then expand into Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display

For advanced operators:

• Build audiences 2–3 weeks ahead of Prime Day
• Use contextual, intent-based, and demographic targeting
• Focus on converting existing audiences, not starting from zero

Where brands waste money (and how to avoid it):

• Over-investing in short bursts of full-funnel advertising
• Expecting immediate returns from mid and upper funnel campaigns
• Cutting spend immediately after the event and losing momentum

Prime Day rewards preparation and consistency, not last-minute spend spikes.

Real operator insight:

• Overstocking without demand leads to liquidation and margin loss
• Not all categories benefit equally from the event
• Advertising needs to align with long-term strategy, not short-term bursts

The bigger picture:

Prime Day is not a make-or-break event. It is a controlled opportunity to accelerate performance if executed correctly.

• Be ready, not reckless
• Anchor decisions to real data
• Protect margins while capturing demand
• Focus on execution over volume

The edge is not in doing more. It is in doing the right things at the right time.

If you are selling on Amazon and preparing for Prime Day, this episode gives you a clear, operator-level framework to execute with confidence.

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In this episode of Selling on Giants, we sit down with Marina Mushlovina and Nila Cook, founders of Neo Naturelle, to unpack how they turned a personal skincare need into an award-winning brand.

Neo Naturelle focuses on women experiencing hormonal changes like perimenopause and menopause—an often overlooked market. Built on their backgrounds in chemistry and food science, the founders created products rooted in real needs, validated through direct customer feedback.

The conversation dives into:

- Building a brand from scratch — starting online, then pivoting into retail post-COVID
- Finding and owning a niche — serving women 40+ with hormone-focused skincare
- Changing the narrative around aging — positioning it as something to embrace, not fight
- Retail expansion lessons — from consignment strategies to navigating large retailer risks
- Bootstrapping growth — using customer interaction and grassroots efforts to refine products and messaging
- What actually drives retail success — strong margins, storytelling, and ongoing in-store support

They also open up about the realities of entrepreneurship—self-doubt, financial risk, and the importance of resilience—while sharing how awards and customer testimonials helped validate their journey.

If you're building a brand or considering retail expansion, this episode is packed with practical insights on how to grow sustainably while staying true to your mission.

Learn More: https://neonaturelle.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neonaturelle/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neonaturellecosmetics/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/neonaturelle/

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In this week’s Selling on Giants News & Updates, we break down what is actually happening across Amazon, Walmart, and the broader eCommerce landscape and what it means for brands, operators, and even consumers.

Here’s what we’re covering:

Amazon Compliance Is Getting Stricter
Restricted product violations are rising across categories, and enforcement is becoming more automated. Listings are getting flagged unexpectedly, appeals are being denied quickly, and even legacy products are triggering account health issues.
Takeaway: Compliance is no longer reactive. It needs to be treated as a core part of operations.

Prime Day Is Moving Earlier
Amazon continues to push deadlines forward. Deals, pricing, and inventory decisions now need to be locked in weeks ahead of the event.
Takeaway: Prime Day is no longer a last-minute push. It is a planned campaign that requires early commitment.

Amazon Expands Beyond Its Marketplace
Multi-Channel Fulfillment is now expanding globally, allowing brands to use Amazon as their fulfillment layer across channels.
Takeaway: Operations become simpler, but dependency on Amazon increases.

Walmart Is Building a Controlled Ecosystem
Walmart is integrating stores, fulfillment, AI, and eCommerce into a single system designed for speed and efficiency.
Takeaway: Inventory placement, delivery speed, and execution now determine performance.

Retail Media Is Moving Up the Funnel
Walmart Connect is simplifying connected TV ads, and Amazon is expanding DSP placements like Kindle lockscreen ads.
Takeaway: Brands are now competing before the customer even starts searching.

Search Is Shifting from Rankings to AI Answers
With GenAI, visibility is no longer just about ranking. It is about being cited and referenced in AI-generated responses.
Takeaway: Content needs to be structured for clarity, authority, and trust, not just keywords.

Operational Risks Are Increasing
USPS is tightening enforcement on underpaid postage, leading to shipment delays and rejections.
Takeaway: Small operational errors now have larger consequences.

Platform Economics Are Changing
BigCommerce is introducing new fees tied to payment providers, pushing brands toward native systems.
Takeaway: Platform decisions now directly impact margins.

AI Is Automating Advertising Execution
Meta is expanding AI tools that simplify campaign setup and optimization.
Takeaway: Execution becomes easier, but strategy and creative become the differentiators.

The Bigger Picture

Automation is increasing.
Control is tightening.
The systems are getting better, but they are less forgiving.

Brands that focus on clean data, clear strategy, and strong execution will adapt faster and capture more value.

If you are running an eCommerce brand or managing marketplace growth, this is one of those moments where understanding how the system works matters more than ever.

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