The summer promo calendar has no off switch 🫠 [MDSR #69]

📰 Hot Off The Presses

Last month, MDS readers were very clear: the thing they most wanted Amazon to stop changing every five minutes was fees, promos, and margin math.

Prime Day has now come and gone, and the numbers made it pretty obvious why sellers are watching the margin math so closely.

U.S. shoppers spent $26.4B online during Amazon’s four-day Prime Day window⁠, up 9.3% YoY, according to Adobe Analytics. So yes, demand is still there.

The less fun part: average Prime Day order size fell to $47.66, down from $53.34 last year. Translation: shoppers still came to buy, but many came armed with a budget, a list, and absolutely no emotional availability for full price.

Numerator’s Prime Day tracker⁠ made the “careful consumer” read even clearer. Over two-thirds of items purchased were under $20, and the top categories included apparel, household essentials, and health & wellness.

Prime Day, apparently, is now part shopping holiday, part pantry restock, part collective attempt to outrun the cost of being alive.

And the promo calendar is not taking a nap now that Prime Day is over. Families are already starting back-to-school shopping earlier⁠ as higher everyday costs push them to chase deals sooner. For sellers, that means Prime Day may be less of a finish line and more of a starting gun for one long summer discount season.

Meanwhile, Amazon is also testing where demand gets captured. The company reportedly bought ads in ChatGPT to promote Prime Day⁠, because AI discovery is now apparently another place where sellers get to wonder, “Cool, how much will this cost me later?”

And on the operations side, Amazon is tightening the screws too. Starting June 29, it began cracking down on inaccurate handling times⁠ for seller-fulfilled SKUs.

So the July read is pretty simple: growth is still real, shoppers are still price-sensitive, discovery is getting weirder, and Amazon still wants your ops to be perfect.

No pressure…

🗳️ This edition’s poll

📡 July signals to watch

A few more eCom developments worth keeping on your radar this month, from tariff uncertainty and low-value import pressure to AI shopping behavior and the next round of marketplace chess moves:

Promo season compression ⤵️

• Walmart and Target move deal events earlier to meet Amazon in June⁠ — The summer promo calendar keeps getting pulled forward, with Walmart Deals and Target Circle Deal Days both shifting up from last year’s July timing to overlap with Amazon’s June deal window.

AI shopping keeps getting weirder ⤵️

• AI referrals converted better during Prime Day⁠ — Adobe found shoppers who reached retail sites through AI chatbots were more likely to buy than visitors from search, email, or social, which makes AI discovery harder to dismiss as a novelty channel.

• AI shopping agents raise new liability and authorization questions⁠ — As shoppers use AI agents to find deals and make purchases, retailers, banks, and AI companies are trying to figure out who’s responsible when a bot buys the wrong thing, triggers fraud, or sends a customer into refund/chargeback limbo.

Tariff and import pressure ⤵️

• EU adds a €3 fee on cheap ecommerce parcels⁠ — Low-value imports from China are getting more expensive in Europe, adding pressure to the Shein / Temu / AliExpress model and forcing marketplaces to show more import costs before checkout.

• U.S. retailers frontload China orders ahead of tariff uncertainty⁠ — Retailers are pulling holiday inventory forward by four to six weeks as tariff questions hang over Q4 planning, which could create a weird mix of earlier shipping costs, earlier inventory risk, and later demand uncertainty.

• France passes fast-fashion law targeting Shein and Temu⁠ — France is moving to penalize ultra-fast-fashion players, adding another regulatory hit to the low-cost, high-volume marketplace model.

Marketplace chess moves ⤵️

• Walmart Marketplace growth reaches its fastest pace in years⁠ — Walmart’s U.S. third-party marketplace grew nearly 50% YoY in Q1 FY2027, making it harder for Amazon sellers to treat Walmart as a nice-to-have side channel.

• Target grows its invite-only marketplace⁠ — Target Plus is adding brands like Forever 21, Clarks, JanSport, and more, showing that even curated marketplaces are getting more aggressive about online assortment expansion.

💸 Million Dollar Advice

More sales don’t always mean more profit.

If shoppers are buying smaller baskets, discounts are stretching into back-to-school, and every promo needs to earn its keep, revenue alone won’t tell you what’s actually working.

That’s where contribution margin comes in. It shows what each sale leaves behind after direct costs like product cost, freight, fulfillment, marketplace fees, returns, payment processing, and ad spend.

For sellers, that can be the difference between scaling a SKU that looks profitable and scaling one that quietly eats cash every time it sells.

If this month’s promo math has you rechecking what’s really worth pushing, start here.

Add our new contribution margin breakdown to your reading list 👉 Boost Profit: Contribution Margin Calculation 2026

🗝️ MDS Summit Singapore is members-only — want in?

MDS Summit Singapore is coming August 23–26, bringing members together for the biggest MDS gathering of the year.

This isn’t a sit-in-the-back-and-take-notes kind of event. It’s a private room for vetted 7–9 figure eCom founders to compare what’s actually working, pressure-test ideas, trade operator notes, and have the kinds of conversations that don’t happen at open-to-everyone conferences.

That’s why access is limited to MDS members. The room only works because everyone in it has been vetted, everyone is actively building, and everyone can speak from real operating experience.

Want access to rooms like this?

Book a free Discovery Call to learn whether MDS membership is the right fit → Book your free Discovery Call

Want a closer look at the Summit experience? → Explore MDS Summit Singapore

🔎 The Amazon data too many sellers miss 

If this month’s margin math has you staring harder at every SKU, promo, and ad dollar, Amazon Brand Analytics deserves more than a quick keyword check.

Used well, ABA helps sellers connect shopper behavior to actual decisions:

1. Find the search gaps you should actually care about.
   Top Search Terms can show where demand is moving, but the real question is whether your products are winning clicks and conversions on the terms that matter.

2. Separate traffic problems from offer problems.
   If shoppers click but don’t buy, your keyword may be right — while your price, images, reviews, or positioning need work.

3. See who you’re really losing to.
   Item Comparison and Alternate Purchase Behavior can show which ASINs shoppers compare against yours, and which products win when they don’t choose you.

4. Use Market Basket beyond bundles.
   Products bought alongside yours can reveal cross-sell paths, catalog gaps, launch ideas, and better ways to increase order value.

5. Know which SKUs create repeat demand.
   Repeat Purchase Behavior helps separate products that deserve retention investment from products that need stronger first-order economics.

ABA works best when it becomes a weekly habit, not a panic button. Use it to spot what needs to change across listings, PPC, pricing, inventory, and product planning.

Read the full breakdown → Amazon Brand Analytics: Unlock Growth in 2026⁠

Think this is helpful?

📅 Pull up a seat this July

Data can show you what’s happening. The right founder room can help you decide what to do next.

Here’s where MDS founders are meeting this month to compare notes, pressure-test ideas, and talk through what’s actually working right now:

🤝 MDS Connects 

Curated founder meetups aligned with the industry’s biggest moments, so conversations happen while the context is still fresh.

• July 15, 2026 — New York Chapter Seller Growth Summit

🤝 Ecompreneur Socials

Low-pressure founder meetups designed for real connection, clean context, and the kind of operator conversations that don’t need a panel to be useful.

• July 15, 2026 — Ecom Founder Connect Dinner NY

• July 18, 2026 — MDS 9 Michelin Dinner July 2026

⏳ Seats are limited and many of these fill well in advance.

Lock them into your 2026 calendar now → All Event Links

👀 Did you see that post ?

The marketplace is healing.

By which we mean someone made a plugin to hide the weird fake brands…

Nature is beautiful.

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 750+ 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]