Prime Day is expanding, but sellers are holding back🫸 [MDSR #49]

Hot Off The Presses 📰

Summer is here and the sales event arms race between major retailers is well underway with Amazon’s news that this year’s Prime Day — running from July 8th to July 11th — will begin a full week earlier and last twice as long as previous events. 

Those extra deal days will determine whether Amazon’s AI shopping features can solve the million dollar problem: Ensuring shoppers find the needle they actually want in the haystack of deals.  

But it turns out that the haystack of Prime Day deals appears to be shrinking this year as sellers hold onto pre-tariff inventory like gold.  

As time ticks down on the tariff pause, Amazon is doing their best to appeal to luxury shoppers who can afford to pad their margins with higher-ticket purchases — but even the most affluent buyers are dialing back their spend as recession fears grow. 

That could explain why private label brands are evolving from a budget basic to a retail powerhouse, with some of the pickiest demographics championing Kirkland apparel and Walmart clothing hauls.

In fact, Walmart is officially cool again, and they’ve seen 23% growth in clothing sales this year to prove it — but Walmart’s moment of glory could be more than a passing fad. 

Their marketplace just crossed 200k active sellers** for the first time, cementing Walmart’s fastest seller acquisition rate in the platform’s history. (**BTW, Amazon is temporarily waiving Multi-Channel Fulfillment fees tied to Walmart orders until January 2026 to rebuild trust with sellers and reduce friction between their competing platforms.)

But Walmart has also expanded drone delivery to 5 new US cities, and launched an agentic AI called Sparky in their consumer app as part of a larger plan to transform the way people shop. 

Amazon may be keeping pace with AI upgrades to help customers get orders faster and increase product availability, but their approach to agentic AI will have to be more cautious: Deploying an army of personal shopping bots could mean less human traffic to Amazon’s app and marketplace — which could turn off advertisers from paying to play in Amazon’s lucrative ad ecosystem. 

Now, Walmart and Amazon are setting their sights on the next big thing in eCom: Their own stablecoin cryptocurrency to push marketplace payments and settlements onto the blockchain instead of traditional credit card networks. 

Move over, delivery robots — even a 1% reduction in interchange costs could save Amazon billions. But there’s good news for sellers, too. Stablecoin transactions could replace ~3% card-network fees with a more reasonable fee of .1% or less, with payments settled near-instantaneously. 

Better cash flow and smoother cross-border payouts? Don’t mind if we do… 

Million Dollar Advice 💸 

If tariffs, de minimis changes, and the chaos of peak seasons past have taught us anything, it’s this: 

Bad inventory bets cost more than just storage fees. They cost you momentum. 

In 2025, prioritizing accurate forecasting is how you can build a strategic moat. Whether you’re scaling fast or playing defense, your ability to predict demand, avoid stockouts, and minimize overstock will make or break your margins. 

Get ahead of the curve (and your competitors) with the inventory forecasting methods every seller should know this year: 👉 Read the full guide

Your Last-Minute Prime Day Checklist ⏳

Prime Day starts July 8 — and assuming that your inventory’s already in, now’s the time to focus on visibility, conversion, and ROAS. 

Here’s your late-stage prep list:

✅ Make Your Listings Pop

• Update keywords based on last year’s Prime Day trends

• A/B test main images and titles for click-through appeal

• Use Premium A+ Content to boost AOV with cross-sells or bundles

✅ Push the Gas on Winning Campaigns

• Raise budgets for high-ROAS campaigns to capture surging traffic

• Turn on retargeting (Sponsored Display Views) to reel back visitors

• Protect your listings with defensive ads targeting your own ASINs

• Scale bids for deals, reduce bids on non-discounted products

✅ Break Out of the Amazon Bubble

• Run Meta or TikTok ads with Amazon Attribution links

• Tap influencer partners with last-minute discount codes

• Use Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus to earn back on off-platform sales

Small tweaks now = major payoffs next week. Let’s move units.

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Did you see that post 📲

Amazon’s email marketing tools are about as flexible as a board game instruction sheet. And your margins are already stretched thinner than a one-day sale price. 

That’s why you shouldn’t just wave goodbye to those new Prime Day customers — follow up, invite them back, and try to build loyalty… even if it’s just a thank you note drafted in Seller Central…

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, 

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*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]