Amazon Wants Your Whole Life — AI Could Reveal Your Habits, Home, Devices, and More

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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’s AI Data Requests Raise Privacy Concerns

📍 Amazon Makes Geo-Targeting in DSP Easier With Brand Penetration Data

📈 Amazon Expands Sponsored Products to Other Retailers

🤖 Amazon Adds Five Seller Assistant Workflows

🔁 Amazon Updates Returns and Recovery Insights in Seller Central

✈️ Amazon Adds Two New Air Freight Options for FBA Sellers

📆 Amazon’s 2026 Holiday Peak Fulfillment Fees Start October 15

⚠️ Amazon’s AI Data Requests Raise Privacy Concerns

Amazon is drawing attention with a prompt designed to build detailed personal profiles from AI conversation histories. It asks AI assistants to compile saved memories, shopping habits, household details, and personal preferences.

Key Updates:

• The prompt covers household details, vehicles, devices, subscriptions, shopping habits, and travel.

• Existing conversation histories become a source of personal shopping data.

• Sharing consolidated profiles could expose sensitive information or enable uses beyond the original purpose.

Personalization can improve recommendations, but collecting this much information raises legitimate concerns. Users should review profiles carefully before sharing them with other services. 

📍 Amazon Makes Geo-Targeting in DSP Easier With Brand Penetration Data

Amazon has added pre-built brand penetration indices to GIA for DSP advertisers. The data is available through the location widget in DVA+ with advanced settings. It lets advertisers compare brand penetration with the wider category across different regions.

Key Updates:

• Amazon uses tracked ASINs to calculate brand penetration compared with the overall category and displays the results on an interactive map.

• Advertisers can access the indices directly in DVA+ instead of building a custom model in Amazon Marketing Cloud.

• Advertisers can target areas where brand penetration is low or increase investment in regions where the brand is already strong, with strategies applied at the ad group level.

The feature is designed to make regional DSP planning faster and more accessible. It gives advertisers a clearer view of where their brand is over- or under-indexing. The indices are currently available across the U.S., Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the UK, Australia, and Japan.

📈 Amazon Expands Sponsored Products to Other Retailers

Amazon Ads is testing a new “Across retailers” tab. The beta allows advertisers to run Sponsored Products ads on participating retailers’ websites. Shoppers can discover and purchase the advertised products directly on those retailers’ sites.

Key Updates:

• Sponsored Products can appear in search, browse, and product pages on participating sites such as iHerb, Macy’s, and P.C. Richard & Son.

• Campaigns are created and managed in the Amazon Ads Console using a setup similar to standard Sponsored Products campaigns.

• Advertised products do not necessarily need to be listed on Amazon, expanding the role of Amazon’s advertising technology beyond its own marketplace.

The beta gives Amazon Ads a broader role across the retail advertising ecosystem. It also creates a new way for advertisers to reach shoppers before they purchase on Amazon. For now, the feature remains limited to the U.S. and participating retail partners.

🤖 Amazon Adds Five Seller Assistant Workflows

Amazon has introduced five ready-made Seller Assistant Workflows for U.S. sellers, covering common operational tasks. The templates help organize order monitoring, pricing analysis, product research, account health, and review requests.

Key Updates:

• Five ready-made templates: Cover order and return monitoring, pricing analysis, product expansion, account health, and automated review requests.

• Custom knowledge base: Sellers can add their own return policies, shipping preferences, and SKU guidelines to personalize workflows.

• Review and approval controls: Sellers can review proposed actions before execution, keeping decisions under their control.

The five templates bring several recurring seller tasks into a more structured workflow. The knowledge base adds another layer of personalization beyond the standard templates. 

🔁 Amazon Updates Returns and Recovery Insights in Seller Central

Amazon has introduced its Returns and Recovery Insights page in the new Seller Central. The dashboard helps sellers track return rates, product return badges, and the value recovered from returned inventory.

Key Updates:

• Return rates use a 45-day delay based on shipment date, while return badges refresh monthly and return rates update daily.

• “High” indicates Frequently Returned, “At Risk” signals a potential issue, and “Low” identifies Frequently Kept products.

• The Recovery tab shows net recovery, recovered value, and removal and disposal fees across Grade, Resell, and Liquidation.

Return metrics and badges may differ because they use different calculation methods. FBA return processing fees also depend on category thresholds, with different rules for apparel and shoes. 

✈️ Amazon Adds Two New Air Freight Options for FBA Sellers

Amazon Global Logistics is introducing two air freight options for shipping inventory from China to the U.S. Air SMP offers delivery in 7–10 days with no FBA inbound placement service fee. Economy Air provides a lower-cost alternative, with estimated transit times of 11–15 days to Los Angeles.

Key Updates:

• Ships from Shanghai and Hong Kong to fulfillment centers across five U.S. regions, with daily departures and no inbound placement service fee.

• Ships from Shanghai or Shenzhen to Los Angeles in 11–15 days at a lower price than standard AGL air freight.

• Both options give sellers alternatives to ocean freight when preparing for Q4 demand, replenishing stockouts, or launching products on tight schedules.

Air SMP offers faster delivery and a specific fee waiver, while Economy Air focuses on lower shipping costs. Amazon has not published standard rates for either option in the announcement.

📆 Amazon’s 2026 Holiday Peak Fulfillment Fees Start October 15

Amazon’s holiday peak fulfillment fees take effect October 15, 2026, and remain in place through January 14, 2027. The seasonal surcharge adds an average of $0.32 per unit to standard fulfillment rates.

Key Updates:

• Charges apply to orders shipped between October 15, 2026, and January 14, 2027, based on the shipment date.

• The surcharge applies to FBA, Remote Fulfillment with FBA, Multi-Channel Fulfillment, and Buy with Prime.

• The reported 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge also applies, adding to sellers’ fulfillment expenses.

The seasonal fees can put additional pressure on seller margins during Q4. Sellers should review fulfillment costs and update holiday profitability forecasts accordingly. Planning can help reduce the impact of higher per-unit costs during peak season.

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