Your Vision — Our Strategy

Each week, we break down the most important Amazon and e-commerce updates and explain what they mean for brands and sellers — across advertising, AI, logistics, platform strategy, and market shifts. This week’s updates show how product discovery is changing fast, while Amazon continues to expand its logistics and advertising ecosystem beyond the standard marketplace experience. ChatGPT is becoming more relevant in the product research stage, Amazon is testing Prime shipping deeper into DTC, and new Prime Day rules make deal planning more demanding. At the same time, Amazon Ads is moving AMC closer to daily use, and new market share data again shows how large Amazon still is in U.S. ecommerce. Here’s what changed.   📌 Contents ChatGPT moves deeper into product discovery Amazon pilots Prime shipping on DTC sites without an Amazon login Prime Day 2026 deal submissions open with tighter pricing and fee rules Amazon tests a seller credit score in search results Amazon Ads brings AMC closer to daily execution Amazon and Shopify now account for about half of U.S. ecommerce Main Content   1️⃣ ChatGPT moves deeper into product discovery   OpenAI introduced a richer shopping experience in ChatGPT. Users can now browse products visually, compare options side by side, upload images to find similar items, and review product details in a more interactive format. The Agentic Commerce Protocol is now being used for product discovery, not only checkout. This makes ChatGPT more relevant in the research stage, where product visibility depends more on structured product data and better catalog quality. Read more here by Roger Dunn     2️⃣ Amazon pilots Prime shipping on DTC sites without an Amazon login   Amazon is testing a new pilot that lets shoppers get Prime shipping on some DTC sites without signing into Amazon during checkout. The program is still limited, but it shows Amazon is extending Prime delivery benefits further outside its own marketplace. For merchants, this keeps the checkout experience on their own site while using Amazon’s delivery network in the background. It is another sign that Amazon wants its logistics services to play a bigger role beyond Amazon.com. Read more here by Noah Wickham     3️⃣ Prime Day 2026deal submissions open with tighter pricing and fee rules   Prime Day 2026 deal submissions are open, but the bigger update is the new deal math. The pricing rules now look stricter: the deal price must be at or below the lowest sales price from the past 60 days and at least 5% below the lowest price from the past 30 days. The fee structure is also heavier, with a $100 upfront fee per promotion plus 1.5% of promotional sales, capped at $5,000. There is also a $50 discount on the upfront fee for Best Deals and Lightning Deals scheduled by April 30, which makes early planning more important. Read more here by Incrementum Digital     4️⃣ Amazon tests a sellercredit score in search results   Amazon is reportedly testing a seller credit score directly in search results. If expanded, this could add another trust signal next to price, reviews, and delivery speed. There is no sign yet of a broad rollout, so this still looks like an early experiment. Even so, it shows Amazon is continuing to test new ways to influence clicks and trust directly on the search page. Read more here by Ivan Marynych     5️⃣ Amazon Ads brings AMC closer to daily execution   At unBoxed Paris 2026, Amazon Ads shared that its MCP Server tools are expanding to include AMC capabilities. This means AI agents may be able to pull insights from saved AMC queries through natural language instead of relying only on more technical workflows. AMC has always been powerful, but not always easy to use in daily campaign work. This update suggests Amazon is moving AMC closer to everyday execution, not only deeper analysis. Read more here by Oleksandr Kovalov     6️⃣ Amazon and Shopify now account for about half of U.S. ecommerce   New market share data highlighted again how dominant Amazon remains in U.S. ecommerce. The bigger point is not whether Amazon is more competitive than before, but how much market share it still controls compared with the rest of the market. At the same time, Shopify continues to hold a strong position outside Amazon, which keeps the Amazon versus DTC discussion active. The message is clear: Amazon remains the biggest ecommerce platform in the U.S., even as other channels keep growing around it. Read more here by Jon Elder     This week showed that discovery, logistics, and commerce infrastructure are all moving at the same time. ChatGPT is becoming more useful in the product research stage, Amazon is extending Prime benefits beyond its own marketplace, and AMC is slowly becoming easier to use in day-to-day work. At the same time, Prime Day planning is getting more demanding, and Amazon’s position in ecommerce remains as strong as ever.   If you want to stay updated on Amazon changes, subscribe to our blog. If you need support with PPC, DSP, AMC, analytics, or a long-term growth strategy, contact the ANavigator team at info@anavigator.co    Book a call to get a FREE AUDIT by the link below:     Book a call – FREE AUDIT   Follow my Weekly Newsletter on LinkedIn:  / amazon-digest-for-brands-7232361008185372672   Follow me on LinkedIn:  / ookovalov  Follow ANavigator on social media:  / anavigator    /@anavigator_official  / anavigator7    / @anavigators     LinkedIn page to contact us:   Author: Oleksandr Kovalov Role: Founder & CEO @ ANavigator — The ANavigator Team

Amazon is testing a new feature that could change how direct-to-consumer brands use its logistics network outside Amazon.com. According to recent reporting, the company is piloting a program that lets shoppers get Prime shipping benefits on external brand websites without signing into an Amazon account during checkout. For brands already using Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment, this could remove one of the biggest adoption barriers. Until now, using Prime shipping outside Amazon usually meant asking shoppers to log into their Amazon account during checkout. That extra step created friction, and for many brands it made the experience less attractive. The new pilot appears designed to fix that.     What Amazon Is Testing   The program is currently being tested with a small group of merchants that use Amazon’s Multi-Channel Fulfillment service. MCF allows sellers to use Amazon’s logistics network to pick, pack, and ship orders placed outside Amazon, including on a brand’s own website. Under this pilot, Prime members can receive fast, free Prime shipping directly on a brand’s website without signing into Amazon during checkout. Amazon handles Prime verification in the background, while the brand keeps its own checkout flow, payment methods, branding, and customer-facing experience. This is a meaningful change because it reduces friction without removing Amazon from the fulfillment side of the process.   Why This Is Important   For years, Amazon has been trying to extend its logistics and Prime infrastructure beyond its own marketplace. Programs like Buy with Prime were built around that idea, but adoption has been mixed. One reason is simple: many brands do not want Amazon too visible in their customer journey. If this pilot works, Amazon may have found a cleaner way to offer the benefit of Prime shipping without asking brands to give up as much control. That makes the offer more practical for DTC brands that want faster delivery but also want to protect their customer relationship and on-site experience.     What Brands Keep Under This Model   One of the most important parts of this test is that Amazon seems to be reducing the trade-offs that usually come with deeper integration. Based on the pilot description, brands keep: their own checkout process their own branding their own customer data their own payment methods more control over returns, customer service, and store policies That is a very different message from a fully Amazon-led checkout experience. For many DTC operators, this is likely the main reason the test is worth watching.   What Amazon Gets in Return   This is not only about helping brands ship faster. Amazon wants to grow its fulfillment business beyond orders placed on Amazon.com. By powering delivery on external websites, it can expand Prime usage, make its logistics network more central to online shopping, and win more merchant volume without needing every transaction to happen inside its own marketplace. In simple terms, Amazon is trying to become infrastructure, not only a marketplace. That is a much bigger strategic move.   Which Brands May Benefit Most   This kind of pilot is likely most attractive for brands that already have strong DTC channels and meaningful off-Amazon sales. According to the reporting, some of the invited merchants generate more revenue on their own websites than on Amazon. That suggests Amazon is not only targeting marketplace-first sellers. It is trying to win over brands that have deliberately kept some distance from deeper Amazon integration. For those brands, the pitch is clear: keep your site experience, keep your checkout, keep your customer relationship, and still offer Prime-speed delivery. If the pricing works, that can be a strong offer.   The Bigger Risk Brands Should Watch   The short-term benefit is easy to understand. Faster delivery can help conversion, and removing login friction can reduce checkout drop-off. The long-term question is more complicated. The more brands rely on Amazon to power delivery behind the scenes, the more Amazon becomes part of the foundation of independent ecommerce. Even if customers do not see Amazon clearly in the shopping journey, the brand may become more dependent on Amazon’s fulfillment network over time. That is where this pilot becomes strategically interesting. It gives brands more flexibility now, but it could also deepen Amazon’s influence across the wider ecommerce ecosystem.   What to Watch Next   This is still a limited pilot, so it is too early to treat it as a broad rollout. But there are a few things worth watching closely: whether Amazon expands the program beyond a small merchant group how pricing compares with existing MCF and Buy with Prime options whether brands see better conversion from removing the Amazon login step how much control merchants actually keep in practice whether Shopify or other e-commerce players respond more directly If Amazon can make Prime shipping easier to use on external websites without taking over the full customer experience, this could become one of the more important e-commerce tests of the year.     Amazon is quietly testing a model that could appeal to many DTC brands: Prime-speed shipping without an Amazon login, without Amazon-heavy checkout, and without giving up the front-end customer experience. For brands, that sounds attractive. For Amazon, it is another step toward becoming the invisible logistics layer behind more of the internet. And for the broader ecommerce market, it raises a bigger question: is this simply a useful shipping upgrade, or the next stage of Amazon’s expansion beyond its own marketplace? If you sell both on Amazon and through your own website, this is one to watch closely.    Book a call to get a FREE AUDIT by the link below:     Book a call FREE AUDIT   Follow my Weekly Newsletter on LinkedIn:  / amazon-digest-for-brands-7232361008185372672   Follow me on LinkedIn:  / ookovalov  Follow ANavigator on social media:  / anavigator    /@anavigator_official  / anavigator7    / @anavigators     LinkedIn page to contact us:     Author: Oleksandr Kovalov Founder & CEO @ ANavigator — The ANavigator Team