🛑 Amazon expands Shop Direct with AI-powered purchases

This allows merchants to surface products in Amazon search results even if they don’t sell on the marketplace itself. And… Rufus is now showing off-Amazon products with the “Buy for Me” feature.

Through integrations with Feedonomics, Salsify and CEDCommerce, brands can sync their catalogs and appear in off-Amazon discovery results so customers can either visit the merchant’s website or let Amazon’s “Buy for Me” AI agent complete the purchase on their behalf.

📰 What you need to know

👉 Amazon’s ultra-cheap marketplace section, Haul, now has 3,287 sellers and roughly $2B in estimated annual GMV. The program focuses on sub-$20 products shipped directly from China, with most sellers based in China or Hong Kong and deliveries averaging about 11 days.

The move positions Amazon directly against Temu and Shein in the low-cost segment, though those platforms are still far larger. Haul proves Amazon is willing to sacrifice speed and margins to compete in the ultra-cheap cross-border market.

👉 Amazon vs Walmart: the AI agent war begins. On one hand Amazon is pushing shoppers toward its own ecosystem with tools like Rufus, Alexa+ and Buy for Me while actively blocking external AI agents from accessing its platform.

Walmart is taking the opposite route, partnering with OpenAI and Google so shoppers can buy directly through ChatGPT or Gemini. The result: two radically different visions of how AI will power online shopping.

👉 OpenAI Instant Checkout tests were a total flop and the company discontinued the solution last week.

💡 Weekly tip: analyze time-to-conversion with AMC

Most sellers judge campaigns only by direct ROAS. The problem? Many campaigns influence the purchase but don’t get the last click.

With Amazon Marketing Cloud you can analyze the “path to conversion” and measure how long it actually takes users to buy after seeing each ad type.

How to do it:

1. Run the Path to Conversion query inside AMC.

2. Compare the average days to purchase for SP, SB, SD and DSP campaigns.

3. Adjust budgets depending on the role of each campaign in the funnel.

Some campaigns convert instantly (BOFU), while others influence purchases days later (TOFU/MOFU). If you optimize only for last-click ROAS, you’ll underinvest in the campaigns that actually start the sale.

Better funnel planning and budgets aligned with the real buying cycle instead of misleading attribution.

Extracted from my ebook Amazon Advertising Hacks

⚒ The best repricer in the market!

Can’t recommend Seller Snap enough! An AI algorithmic Amazon repricer capable of detecting the behavior of your competitors and making tailored price adjustments to outsmart your competition.

Works both for Amazon B2B and B2C and Walmart too and multi-store view!