🛑 Attention Amazon Sellers

Chinese sellers now make up 50.03% of Amazon’s global active sellers, the first time they’ve passed the halfway mark. A decade ago, they were just 7% of new Amazon.com registrations and, today, they dominate nearly every marketplace except Japan, thanks to AI tools, direct factory access and aggressive pricing.

But U.S. sellers still win on revenue. On average, they generate $884K per seller versus $393K for Chinese sellers. Marketplace Pulse estimates U.S. sellers bring in $157B of Amazon’s 3P GMV compared to $132B from China proof that profitability still favors local operators.

It’s always been a US vs China war on Amazon. Which side are you on?

📰 What you need to know

👉 Amazon’s shopping bot Rufus just got more agentic: it can now add items directly to a shopper’s cart. That’s a big leap from simply recommending products, because it’s starting to act on behalf of the customer. So Rufus is getting ready to be fuel Alexa+ as your agentic AI Shopping Assistant, not just for Amazon, but for every shop.

👉 OpenAI launched Instant Checkout, letting users buy products directly inside ChatGPT. Etsy is live, Shopify is next, powered by a new Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe.

For brands, this means access to 700M weekly users and full transaction data. ChatGPT is no longer just a recommendation engine it’s becoming a shopping channel of its own. Expect ads to enter the game!

👉 Amazon will pay $2.5B after the FTC accused it of using “deceptive subscription traps” to lock customers into Prime. The deal includes a $1B penalty plus $1.5B in refunds to 35M people.

Amazon must now simplify Prime sign-ups and cancellations. It’s one of the biggest consumer protection wins in FTC history and a black eye for one of Amazon’s most valuable products.

👉 ChatGPT is already a major referral driver: 20% of Walmart’s traffic now comes from it, with Etsy, Target and eBay seeing similar boosts. Users are turning AI prompts like “best laptop under $1,000” into real shopping clicks. Again, expect ads to enter the game sooner than later.

Amazon, meanwhile, blocks AI crawlers to protect its $56B ads business. Instead, it’s betting on its own bot, Rufus. But while rivals ride the AI traffic wave, Amazon risks being left out of the discovery funnel.

⚒️ Software & Services

This week I’ll recommend just 1 tool for profits. But it includes sooooo many subtools. Check it out: Profit Cyclops is an all-in-one analytics platform for Amazon and Walmart sellers, providing real-time profitability insights and including:

• Refund Cyclops – FBA reimbursement service to recover money for lost or damaged inventory.

• Repricer Cyclops – Real-time repricing engine with Buy Box optimization and profit margin protection.

• Arbitrage Cyclops – Tools for arbitrage sellers including ROI analysis, Buy Box tracking, and competitor insights.

• Accounting Cyclops – Integrates with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage for accurate settlement matching and tax-ready reports.

• Agency Tools – Multi-client dashboard for agencies to manage all accounts from one centralized profile.