🛑 Attention Amazon Sellers!

AI referral traffic is becoming the third pillar of the Amazon funnel.

Similarweb estimates AI-driven traffic to Amazon has more than doubled in the past six months, hitting 13.9 million visits in June. That's only 1% of total traffic, but direct attribution hides the real story: in a Similarweb study of MacBook buyers, 28.53% had a category-relevant AI chat session in the 30 minutes before purchasing.

Amazon itself ran Prime Day ads inside ChatGPT this year and pushed Alexa for Shopping into the main search bar.

One more signal to watch: everyone is seeing more long-tail queries in search query reports, possibly because shoppers are getting used to prompting so… don’t sleep on Sponsored Products prompt segmentations!

👉 China won Amazon's top 10,000, America kept its top 100. Chinese sellers now hold 55.9% of the top 10,000 seats on Amazon.com, up from 42.5% in July 2020, while US sellers fell from 53.7% to 40.5%.

Surprised? Even with tariffs, Chinese sellers are an unstoppable force on every marketplace. Prove me wrong.

BUT American sellers still generate 65.3% of the cohort's GMV, make up 81.4% of the top 100, and sell at $47.62 average price vs $22.03 for Chinese sellers.

Factory-direct entrants with thinner margins (thank you, Amazon Haul) are outspending veterans on sponsored placement, so longevity alone no longer protects your rank. It’s always been about sales velocity for organic and Revenue Per Click on sponsored.

👉 Amazon Shipping is going after FedEx and UPS with aggressive pricing. As you may know, weeks ago they opened Amazon Shipping to all businesses. The service is winning shippers with lower rates, fewer surcharges and no residential or weekend delivery fees, with sources reporting client savings of up to $6 per package.

Amazon Shipping is even undercutting USPS on sub-1lb packages!

👉 When shoppers promp like AI users, build campaigns for long tails. Create Sponsored Brands campaigns with only long-tail HALO keywords, long tails that expand on your core keywords, like "collagen for women over 50".

Optimize the headline with the same semantics, then review search terms and add negatives if CTR drops. With AI pushing shoppers toward longer, more specific queries, this is cheap qualified traffic your competitors are ignoring. Expect higher CTR and more qualified clicks.

Extracted from my ebook Amazon Advertising Hacks.