Amazon Doesn’t Want You to Choose — It Wants You to Stop Searching

Welcome to our weekly newsletter, Hunter's Insights!

In this special edition, we bring you essential Amazon updates and industry insights to keep you ahead in the fast-paced world of e-commerce:

🚫 Amazon Quietly Buries Virtual Bundles — Sellers Lose a Key AOV Lever

📊 Amazon Launches ‘Help Me Decide’ to Simplify Shopper Choices

🔓 Amazon Unlocks Pre-Launch Vine Enrollment for Sellers

🤖 ‘Enhance My Listing’ Launches for Continuous Optimization

💲 Your Seller Tools Are About to Get More Expensive — Here’s Why

📲 Amazon Ads Integration with Macy’s Is Now Officially Live

📈 Amazon Just Made Sponsored Display a True Performance Tool

🚫 Amazon Quietly Buries Virtual Bundles — Sellers Lose a Key AOV Lever

Amazon has revised its Virtual Bundles feature, reducing shoppers' visibility. Customers now need to manually enable "Show bundle deals," which means around 90% may miss these offers, impacting average order value (AOV).

Why This Matters:

• Virtual bundles boosted AOV without extra inventory.

• They improved brand visibility across keywords.

• Now, only a small fraction of users will see these bundles.

What to Do Next:

• Consider multi-packs or physical bundles where feasible.

• Optimize core listings and use A+ Content to encourage related purchases.

• Leverage Subscribe & Save to compensate for lost bundle conversions.

Amazon's policies can change rapidly, as evidenced by this latest move. While virtual bundles are not gone, they are now obscured. Sellers who adapt swiftly to this change will continue to thrive, while others may be left wondering why their conversions have declined.

📊 Amazon Launches ‘Help Me Decide’ to Simplify Shopper Choices

Amazon's new feature, Help Me Decide, redefines e-commerce by shifting focus from helping customers search to assisting them to stop searching. While Amazon has excelled in offering endless options and fast delivery, this update signifies a deeper change in its approach.

Key takeaways:

• Help Me Decide analyzes shopper intent and behavior, then delivers one clear recommendation — not a list.

• The goal is to remove “decision fatigue” — comparison tabs, second-guessing, and hesitation that stall conversions.

• This is AI-driven confidence, not personalization for novelty’s sake — it explains why an item fits you.

• For brands, the algorithm now measures trustworthiness and clarity, not just keyword relevance or price.

Amazon isn’t selling more choice — it’s selling assurance. And as AI takes over the act of deciding, brands must evolve from optimizing visibility to optimizing credibility — because the next frontier of conversion isn’t attention, it’s trust.

🔓 Amazon Unlocks Pre-Launch Vine Enrollment for Sellers

Amazon has updated its Vine program, allowing sellers to enroll multiple ASINs before launch for quicker early reviews. This helps products build trust and gain ranking momentum faster.

Key updates:

• Pre-launch enrollment: Sellers can enter Vine as soon as they create their FBA listing.

• Smart recommendations: Amazon suggests the optimal number of review units based on expected sales.

• Flexible control: Sellers can adjust the number of units up to 30 per ASIN for enrollment.

• Optimized for scale: Ideal for multi-SKU launches needing quick traction.

This update allows sellers to gain social proof faster, increase conversion rates, and improve visibility before their official launch. If you’re planning new product releases for Q4, utilizing Vine now can help you establish credibility ahead of the competition.

🤖 ‘Enhance My Listing’ Launches for Continuous Optimization

Amazon's generative AI for listings has become highly adopted, with 900,000 sellers and a 90% adoption rate, leading to a 40% improvement in listing quality. Initially a content helper, it is now evolving into a governance system for optimization. The new “Enhance My Listing” tool generates and continuously refines improvements.

Key updates include:

• Sellers can now request AI-driven enhancements for titles, attributes, and product details based on real-time shopping behavior.

• Powered by Amazon Bedrock, the tool learns from seasonal and conversion trends to propose smarter changes.

• Feedback loops between seller edits and AI recommendations are now shared, allowing the system to learn how brands respond.

The goal is to keep existing listings relevant instead of creating new ones. This represents a major shift for sellers, as optimization becomes adaptive, continuous, and data-driven. The challenge is to maintain control as Amazon's AI defines "optimized" for countless listings. Successful sellers will see the AI’s output as a valuable signal rather than just a script.

💲 Your Seller Tools Are About to Get More Expensive — Here’s Why

Amazon has announced a significant policy change: third-party software companies will now need to pay for API access, which has been free for decades.

What’s changing:

• Every software provider must now pay $1,400 per year just to maintain access.

• On top of that, Amazon is introducing monthly API call fees, based on usage volume.

• The new pricing model applies to all tools that connect with Amazon’s Seller or Advertising APIs — from PPC dashboards to inventory, analytics, and review tools.

Expect higher subscription prices for seller-facing tools, from campaign automation to keyword research platforms. Amazon’s latest update, while appearing as a developer change, is actually a disguised cost increase for sellers as it monetizes its ecosystem.\

📲 Amazon Ads Integration with Macy’s Is Now Officially Live

Advertisers can now run campaigns on Macy's through Amazon Ads. This long-awaited integration, announced earlier this year, is now live, marking a significant milestone in Amazon's expansion of off-site retail media.

Here are the key details:

• Macy's ad inventory is now directly accessible through the Amazon Ad Console.

• Brands selling on Macy's can target the shopper base using Amazon's data-driven advertising tools.

• This integration enhances Amazon's Retail Media Network by extending ad reach beyond its own marketplace.

• It also signifies Amazon's next phase: bridging eCommerce and retail media ecosystems under one platform.

For advertisers, this presents a new audience within a trusted retail environment, combining Amazon's targeting precision with Macy's shopper intent. This shift signals the diminishing barriers between marketplaces and retailers, making retail media more omnichannel.

📈 Amazon Just Made Sponsored Display a True Performance Tool

Amazon has updated its Sponsored Display vCPM campaigns to tackle advertisers' concerns about inflated performance data. Previously, these campaigns attributed sales based solely on impression data, making it hard to differentiate between actual performance and passive exposure.

Here’s what’s new:

• You can now see Orders, Sales, and ACOS based on actual clicks instead of just impressions.

• Advertisers can optimize vCPM campaigns using real data rather than modeled conversions.

• This enhancement positions Sponsored Display vCPM as a credible, performance-driven format rather than purely an awareness tool.

• You can expect clearer insights when comparing the efficiency of CPC versus vCPM campaigns.

This change brings Amazon closer to transparent, accurate data in advertising, marking a significant win for media buyers and brands in need of cleaner attribution.

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