AI image wasteland 🤖 or Amazon’s discount section? [MDSR #36]

Hot Off The Presses 📰

Feel that? That’s the momentum of sales picking back up as consumers (and sellers by extension) breathe a sigh of relief as pre-election anxiety returns to normal levels. 

eCommerce is once again outpacing general retail sales with online sales now making up 15.6% of total retail. Early bird holiday shoppers are already exceeding expert spending predictions. And major platforms are pulling out all the stops to help sellers get a piece of the pie. 

Pinterest is serving their users easy-to-shop-from wishlists to fuel holiday shopping, while Substack is quietly emerging as a viable channel for brands to avoid extreme holiday competition and actually get through to engaged, niche audiences. But it’s TikTok in particular that’s shaping up as one to watch when it comes to driving holiday revenue. 

Besides their forecasts of record-breaking Christmas sales for brands selling on TikTok Shop, more than half of their users have already found gift ideas on the platform. And now they’re quietly testing product links from Amazon, Walmart, and Target directly in posts to boost their reputation for shopping. 

That said, we all have to read the room to succeed this year. Consumers are already feeling bombarded by too many holiday deals, and Q3 earnings showing Walmart’s success with quality over quantity and bigger ticket items — compared to Target’s plunging share value after discounting +10,000 items — prove they’re not doing retailers many favors, either. 

We can’t exactly blame the 38% of shoppers who will use GenAI to steer their holiday shopping journey with more intention (and less branded messaging) to find the best prices or compare specific items.

As far as the best prices, Amazon is still the lowest-priced online retailer in the US with a 14% price advantage — and that’s not even factoring in their new ‘Haul’ discount section, which journalists are not-so-fondly calling an AI image wasteland… And a Temu version of Temu. 

The race to the bottom of the discount barrel is getting steep with Amazon offering 50% off all orders placed through Haul during the holiday season. But they’re being even more generous with their expanded holiday benefits for Buy With Prime. 

Speaking of generous acts from Amazon, they’re now promising to keep fee increases to a minimum in the new year. It’s the least they could do considering that small brands spend 3x more on Amazon Ads — and all the bigger brands are rapidly moving over to Shopify. 

Million Dollar Advice 💸 

What’s the point of building a community before I even have something to sell? I can always network after I launch…

Sound familiar? Putting the cart before the horse when you’re building an eCommerce business is a scary thought. But if you’ve ever launched a product to lukewarm reception — and then found yourself scrambling to reverse engineer a product-market fit — you’ve already fallen into the trap of selling something without understanding exactly who you’re selling to. 

Justin Cobb of Carbon6 is here to help with some million dollar advice on profitable habits, acquisitions, and of course — Amazon.

How to use ChatGPT like the people who work there 🤖

If you’re among the many sellers who were excited to dabble with ChatGPT since it entered the mainstream a couple of years ago, chances are you’ve given it a shot — and discovered that mileage varies.  

The truth is that ChatGPT can be an absolute game-changer, but you get out of it what you put into it. On that front, you might want to check out these tips from OpenAI’s Head of Product on how to get more out of ChatGPT:

Here’s a quick and dirty summary of the tips:

1. Experiment with voice mode. ChatGPT gives better answers when it has more context, and it gets the most possible context when you engage it in conversation as if you were talking to another person. Makes sense that that’s easier to do in voice mode! 

2. Ask it to remember things. You can tell ChatGPT directly to remember important pieces of context to shape its answers — think: details about your brand or business vertical — so you don’t have to repeat yourself each time. 

3. Experiment with making a customized GPT (no code needed). Apparently it only takes 15 minutes to configure a custom bot to churn out responses to any prompts you want — including image outputs — and even make it publicly available online, or keep it private for internal use only. 

4. File uploads for paid users. This is the next level up to asking it to remember things — ChatGPT can analyze the text and extract information from files, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you upload. 

5. Incorporate images into your conversations. The image generator DALL-E is also available in ChatGPT, and the chatbot can understand and interpret images to support cross-pollination between both programs. You can even ask ChatGPT to create images from your conversations.

Read the full article here

Think these tips are helpful? Feel free to pass ‘em along 🙂 

Struggling to scale? 📈

Running an Amazon business can feel like a 24/7 job — managing inventory, optimizing listings, running PPC campaigns, and striving to boost rankings.

AMZ Optimized is here to lighten that load so you can work on your business, not in it. Leveraging top-tier software and expert human insight, they create data-driven strategies that drive powerful, measurable results.

Their advanced tech stack includes top-tier advertising automation platforms and sophisticated optimization tools, generating unique, actionable insights into your campaigns and data so they can fine-tune every part of your Amazon strategy for success.

Here’s how AMZ Optimized help you achieve more:

• Create compelling A+ content and infographics that tell your brand story, backed by conversion data

• Develop fully optimized listings using data-driven keyword research to boost discoverability

• Design custom storefronts that showcase your brand and encourage customer engagement

• Produce professional video content to drive engagement and improve conversion rates

• Run efficient PPC campaigns across all ad types with automated optimization

• Host monthly strategy sessions with in-depth performance analytics and actionable insights

With advanced tools and our dedicated team, you can expect:

✓ Higher conversion rates
✓ Better organic rankings
✓ Improved ROAS
✓ Healthier profit margins

Check out our complete list of Amazon services here. Then, book a free call, and we'll examine your account to identify opportunities you might be missing.

eCom Stock Watch 📊

Click on the table below or view the full size data here. 

Set yourself up for success in 2025 with MDS 🥇

Building a successful e-commerce business isn’t a walk in the park. From endless product research to constant market changes, staying ahead of the game can feel like you're navigating a maze alone. 

In this vast and competitive world of e-commerce, flying solo is not only tough, but it can be costly — mentally and financially.

So, what's the solution?

If this piqued your interest, it’s worth getting MDS Inspire 2025 on your calendar for next year ⬇️ 

Did you see that post 📲

Maybe the latest $4B Anthropic investment will help?

Until Next Time ✌️

As always, thanks for sticking with us until the end. 

If you’d care to share your thoughts on this newsletter, we’re all ears. Just hit reply to sound off. 

See you next time with more of the latest and greatest content you need to succeed this year 🔥

Sincerely, 

Looking for a mastermind community?

Million Dollar Sellers (MDS) is an exclusive community of 650+ like-minded Amazon and DTC sellers from all over the world. Collectively, our members generate more than 8 billion in annual sales and dominate some of the biggest categories on Amazon. MDS offers world-class events, chapters, industry discounts, resource libraries full of SOPs, templates, and video recordings of private trainings, workshops, events and so much more.

If you are looking for a business professional community made for ecom entrepreneurs, then consider applying today. 

*To qualify, you must be a full-time seller or brand owner and do at least 1 million in verified annual revenue. Will Amazon’s Returnless Resolutions solve the returns debacle? [MDSR #30]