#536 - Q4 Holiday Deadlines Are Here! New Buy Box Changes & Ways to Cut Costs | Weekly Buzz 7/9/26

Q4 holiday deal and inventory deadlinesannounced. There are new changes to the featured offer eligibility and new waysto reduce return and storage costs. This and more on this week's episode of theweekly buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody and welcome to anotherepisode of the AMM podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Carrie Miller, and thisis the show that is our Helium 10 weekly buzz, where we give you a rundown of allthe goings on in the Amazon, Tik Tok shop, and e-commerce world. We let youknow what new features Helium 10 has, and we also give you a training tip ofthe week. So, let's get started and see what's buzzing. All right, let's goahead and get into the first thing, and that is that the Q4 deadlines arealready actually here. And if you're planning to run deals or send inventoryfor the holiday season, this is the time to start mapping everything out. Now,this is actually really cool because Amazon doesn't usually do this, and I'mreally appreciative of getting these dates ahead of time so that I can alsoplan. So, Amazon just announced the key dates for holiday 2026, including PrimeBig deal days, Black Friday week, and Cyber Monday. And while the fees andeligibility requirements are staying the same, the deadlines are actually comingup faster than you think. I know it's a summer, but it's it's actually comingsooner than we think it'll be here in a flash. So, the deal submissions are nowopen. So, for Prime big deal days, you can submit deals from July 8th throughSeptember 8th. For Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can submit submissionsfrom July 8th through October 20th. So, Amazon is also bringing back the earlysubmissions discount. So, if you submit Prime big deal days by August 5th orBlack Friday and Cyber Monday deals by September 5th, you can save $50 on theupfront promotion fee, which that's actually good. Every little bit helps.For deal fees, Amazon says there are no new eligibility requirements and feeswill remain the same as Prime Day. A $100 upfront fee promotion plus a 1.5%variable fee on promotional sales capped at $5,000. One important detail is thatPrime Big deal days promotional prices will not count against the 30-day or60-day look back window. So, they won't impact the maximum deal price requiredfor Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which is definitely important. So now thebiggest thing to pay attention to is inventory. Every year we're alwaystalking about inventory in our elite group, just how to manage it. Um so forprime big deal days, inventory needs to arrive by September 2nd for um AWD andSeptember 9th for FBA with minimal shipment splits and September 16th forAmazon optimized shipment splits, which is what most sellers use. For BlackFriday Week and Cyber Monday, the deadlines are October 14th for AWD,October 21st for FBA with minimal shipment splits, and October 28th forAmazon optimized shipment splits. Holiday peak fulfillment fees will alsoapply again from October 15th, 2026 through January 14th, 2027 for FBA,remote fulfillment with FBA, multi- channel fulfillment, and buy with Prime.Amazon says the increase will average about 32 cents per unit and the 3.5%fuel and logistics search charge will apply on those top peak fees. Amazon isalso warning sellers to plan ahead for capacity. So fulfillment centers will befocused on receiving holiday inventory in September and October, but inNovember and December they shift more towards processing customer orders. Sothat means sellers will are going to see lower capacity limits later in theseason. So definitely important to plan ahead with inventory. This is very verykey. So, the recommendation is to send inventory early, especially if you'reexpecting higher Q4 volume. Amazon also suggests using Amazon warehousing anddistribution or AWD to store extra inventory and automatically replenishFBA u when needed. So, sellers can also use capacity manager to bid foradditional fulfillment center space if they need it. If you're planning Q4deals, don't wait is basically what I'm trying to say. Check your margins.Submit your promotions early if you want the discount and make sure yourinventory arrives before the cuto off dates so you're ready for that peaktime. Now, that's that's key. So, plan ahead. I'm really glad they gave usthese dates. So, go ahead and take control of that and make sure we havethe biggest Q4 ever. All right. This next thing that I want to share with youis actually not news, but it's our latest listing skill. And it's called alisting skill, but it also has some PPC in it. And I worked on this for quite awhile um just with my own business. and I really wanted this information just tokind of go through and audit my listings and then also look for some new PPCtargets. So, the first thing that you'll get when you upload this skill to Claudeand you'll also for this skill, you'll need a Cerebro download of yourself andyour competitors and then screenshots of their listings on um on Amazon. So,that's pretty much what this needs. It's pretty simple to do, but it's going togive you a keyword gap first of all. And that I like this because it shows yourlisting and it shows where the most important keywords are and it highlightswhere you've placed them in the phrase form. And then if you go down to yourcompetitors, it also shows you where they have those keywords in the phraseform. And so I put in a bunch of different competitors here. So you cansee there's a bunch of listings with all of that information. I really likeseeing that. It also shows kind of some title density keywords like that. Youknow, maybe the title density is really low. So it might be really easy to umrank for those particular um keywords. For example, like a title density ofzero means that there are zero sellers on the page one for that particularkeyword with that exact phrase in their title. So if you put it the exact phrasein your title, potentially you could maybe rank a little bit um faster thanthose competitors for that keyword. So again, all these different competitors,we've got that. Um and then it's going to show you some competitor gaps. like acompetitor has this keyword in their listing and like the phrase form, butyou don't have it. So, we've got that list right here, which I really like tosee. Okay, so the these competitors are putting in the phrase form. It'spotentially important and maybe you missed it. So, we've got the gaps hereof and looks like right here we've got 28 uh gaps on this one. And CPRopportunities as well. It's going to show, you know, how like kind oflowerhanging fruit. So, maybe you need a lower amount of sales to get to the top10. And our CPR number is is that Helium 10 number that we calculated how manysales you need to get in an 8day period in order to start ranking in the top 10.So over 8 days, you know, 161 is pretty low all the way to 63 there. And then wehave this particular look at the listing. And I'm going to actually go inmore into detail with a spreadsheet that comes with this that has thisinformation and more. But next up, um, we also have listing advice. So, thisone is actually kind of a listing overview analysis and it gives you someactionable things that you can do to help optimize your listing. So, it'stalking about keywords and that you know if you've written in a lot of importantkeywords, but it also talks about rank, which is really, really important. So,you might have optimized your listing, you've written these really importantphrases in there, but if you're not ranking for them in, you know, a lowerspot, it's going to be hard for you to get those, you know, up in sales forthose keywords. So, we have some specifics on how you compare to yourcompetitors in that way. Um, and it gives you kind of a head-to-head scorewith price and all that kind of stuff. So, really kind of shows you why maybeyour competition is winning. So, we've got all of that information in here. Andthen it gives you some recommended title and bullets. And it it shows it in 75characters cuz that's now going to be the new limit. Um, and then it gives youkind of at the very end a prioritized action plan of things that you should dobased on their suggestions here, which I absolutely love. So, that's anotherthing that you get with this skill. And then the final thing that I really like,so this is going to show you 50 keywords um that competitors have beat you on andthat you could potentially start ranking for. So if we go over to this far rightcolumn, it says winability. So basically what it's saying here, it says hard,you're buried. You're like in the top, you're basically in page six or seven.It's going to be really hard for you to rank, but these close push with PPC. Sothis one for example, your organic rank is 137 and your competitor is 25. So,it, you know, it's probably an important keyword for this particular product. Andif it's a clo, if it says close push with PPC, that means you're within agood amount of reach where you can potentially push PPC and get some sales.And if you look at this um CPR number, we also put the number of sales you needin 10 days in order to get ranking in the top 10. So, you know, 52 sales over,you know, an 8day period is actually not that hard. And especially if you alreadyare ranking, you actually might need less than that to get to the top. Sothis is a really cool thing to see because basically you can see okay theseare kind of the lowhanging fruit keywords where I'm kind of you knowranking like even here we've got let's see the competitor rank is 12 I'm 81that's that's not too bad I'm 56 here you know these are the close PPC pushesso this is some gives you something to target with your PPC also make sure thatthese keywords are written into your listing so that you can take advantageof these keywords that your competitors are beating you on but um that you wantto also overtake because you know the more keywords they're beating you on.That's why they're having, you know, potentially more sales cuz they've gotmore visibility. So, the more visibility that you have, the better. So, that'swhy I love this spreadsheet. It's so helpful to not only see what keywordsare kind of lower hanging fruit that I can push with PPC, but also how manysales I would need in 10 days to get that. And obviously, you know, you canstay within your budget. You just need to kind of manage your your sales. Makesure over the 8day period you're getting that number of um of sales. and you'llyou'll probably, you know, see pretty quickly how your rank moves. So, that isthe skill that I built and it's really really interesting to see your listingoverview and just the breakdown of why your competitors might be beating youbased on what you know the analysis is with your keywords and then what youknow Claude says overall. Definitely download this keyword. We have the linkin the description. So, you basically just download this skill and then you'regoing to upload those files that I told you a cerebro file with you and yourcompetitors and then screenshots of your competitor's listings and um justspecify which as is your as and which one's your competitors and then go fromthere. And it's it's definitely worth it, especially if you're kind of wantingto optimize for Q4, you're wanting to really prepare and get yourself goingand getting some traction. This is a great way to do that. So, if you wantthis skill, go ahead and download it. It's free to download and you know ifyou already have Helium 10 obviously you have these spreadsheets and things soit's great a great resource for you to start using that right now basically.Okay, next we have a featured offer update. Amazon is making a major updateto how sellers are considered for the featured offer. Starting in July of2026, which is right now, Amazon will begin removing the separate sellereligibility requirement for the featured offer. This change will roll outgradually across Amazon stores globally and is expected to be completed by theend of 2026. So what does this actually mean? Well, right now Amazon first looksat whether a seller meets certain performance-based eligibilityrequirements. Then from that pool of eligible sellers, Amazon ranks theoffers for a product and chooses which ones become the featured offer. SoAmazon says that first eligibility step is no longer adding extra value forcustomers. So they're removing it. The important thing to know is that noaction is required from sellers. Existing offers will automatically beincluded as this update rolls out. But this does not mean every seller willautomatically win the featured offer. Amazon says the way the featured offeris selected is not changing. Offers will still be evaluated based on what mattersmore to customers, including competitive pricing, delivery speed, and sellerperformance. So, the takeaway is that more sellers may now be considered forthe featured offer, but winning it will still depend on having a strongcompetitive offer. If you sell on Amazon, this is a good reminder to keepyour eye on your pricing, fulfillment, speed, and overall account performancebecause those factors actually do play a role, a major role actually in whetheror not your offer gets featured. All right, up next we have Bradley with thestrategy of the week. So, take it away, Bradley. How to view the history of whowere the top three clicked products for a keyword over weeks or months of time.Now, Amazon brand analytics top search terms has been a great data point forprobably over 6 years now. It was one of the first data points even before searchperformance uh came out where Amazon is telling you, hey, who were the top threeproducts that were clicked after the search of a keyword and which ones uh ofthem got actually got sales. Now, Helium 10 is the only tool where you canactually search the history of it. like, hey, let me put in an as and see whatwas the history of all of the keywords where this product was one of the topthree clicked and it had sales, right? We've talked about that on on this showbefore, but there's also a newer feature where I can now see the history of thetop three clicked products for any keyword. How would you do that? Uh, thefirst thing you want to do is here in the Blackbox brand analytics, uh, selecta whole bunch of weeks or even months. Like I'm just going to go ahead and andselect about like 10 15 weeks here. And then what I can do is I can enter in akeyword like for example coffin shelf. And once I hit search, it is going totell me what were the top uh products week by week for this keyword coffinshelf. Now take a look once I hit this expansion. Now I can see from February15 to 21st, from March uh 12th to 28th, from May etc. etc. Look at this completelist of every single product that was one of the top three clicked. What can Ido with this? I can now export this and download this. This would be a great wayto do uh as targeting. Uh this would be a great way to do product research ifI'm trying to get into a new niche. I'm just wondering, hey, over time, who arethe top products consistently week by week for this? Is it consistent? Likelook at this. this Gothic Curiosities was the top click product like for weeksand weeks at a time and and my product, the Manny's Mysterious Oddities only acouple times. Here's a product that probably is out of stock right now. I'mnot sure. Um, no, it's in stock right now, but but for whatever reason,they're not really selling much anymore, but back in the day, they were the top,you know, click product and they actually had 28% of the of the purchasesas well. So, this is a great way to do research, not with any estimations orHelium 10 data, but this is data direct from Amazon. And again, this is the onlyall-in-one tool where you are able to research and within seconds be able tosee what the top threeclick products were over a long period of time. Um, Iwould export this maybe uh, you know, do some consolidation in AI or claude if Iwant to get deeper insights. Uh, but guys, start using this, add some ofthese to your ASIN targeting campaigns and see who are your top competitorsover time. >> All right, thank you so much for thatstrategy of the week, Bradley. Let's go ahead and keep on moving to the nextpiece of news, and this is returnless resolutions. Amazon is actuallyhighlighting a way for FBA sellers to reduce return costs through a programcalled returnless resolutions. And this is a program that allows sellers toautomatically issue refunds without requiring the customer to send theproduct back. The idea is very simple that you know in some cases it actuallycosts more to process the return than the product is actually worth. So forexample, if it costs $8 to 12 to ship back and process a $5 item, it may makemore sense to refund the customer and skip the return entirely. With returnlist resolution, sellers can set their own rules based on things like pricerange, product category, or return reason. Then when a customer returnrequest matches those rules, Amazon can automatically issue the refund withoutrequiring the item to be shipped back. This can help lower return costs byreducing shipping inspection and restocking expenses. It can also createa faster customer experience since shoppers can receive an immediate refundinstead of waiting for the return process to be completed. Another benefitis that sellers stay in control. You can decide which products um or returnreasons qualify, set price um thresholds, and adjust your rules overtime as your margins change. So, this may be especially useful for lowcostitems, perishable goods, hygiene sensitive items, or products that losevalue once they've been opened. So, to set it up, you need to go to FBAsettings in seller central and and select returnless resolutions under theFBA returns evaluation ownership settings. So, the key in this is thatreturnless resolutions won't make sense for every product, but for the rightitems, it could help reduce your costs, simplify operations, and resolvecustomer issues faster. Now, this is something that's kind of iffy because wealso don't want customers to just get in the habit of returning things andkeeping the product. I don't really like that either. So, I wouldn't do this forall of your products and I would just be kind of careful and watch it if that'ssomething that you do implement. All right, last but not least, we haveglobal warehousing and distribution. Amazon announced a new storage promotionfor sellers who sell in the US and they source products from China. So, fromJuly 1st through December 31st of 2026, sellers can get 30 days of free storagewith Global Warehousing and Distribution, also known as GWD forevery shipment received at the active GWD distribution center. This is on topof the GWD storage rates that Amazon says are already up to 45% lower than USAmazon warehousing and distribution rates. So, what is GWD? GWD allowssellers to store inventory in China, closer to where many products aremanufactured, and then Amazon helps replenish the inventory to the US FBAfulfillment centers based on demand. The goal is to help sellers stay in stockwithout having to manage as much of the international logistics processthemselves. Amazon is also expanding the program. Starting July 16th, 2026, GWDwill add a new facility in Shanghai in addition to in addition to Shenzhen. Sosince Shanghai is one of China's major manufacturing and export hubs, thiscould help some sellers get inventory into GWD into the GWD network faster.Amazon is also adding support for free on border FOB across all GWD locations.This gives sellers more control over export documentation and can help withthings like export declaration and origin port handling charges. So, thebig takeaway of this is that sellers sourcing from China may be able toreduce US storage costs by keeping bulk inventory in China and moving it intothe US FBA only when needed. And this can be especially helpful heading intoQ4 when storage planning and inventory placement becomes even more important.So, to get started, sellers can go to send to Amazon warehousing anddistribution, select a China ship from address, choose a GWD distributioncenter, select the SKS and quantities they want to send, and submit thebooking. The free storage promotion applies automatically once the shipmentis received at a GWD facility. After the first 30 days, standard GWD storage feesapply. So, if you source from China and sell in the US, this could be a goodtime to test GWD with a smaller shipment before se uh the, you know, the main Q4peak season ramps up. All right, that is all I have for you on this week'sepisode of the weekly buzz. I hope you enjoyed all of these news updates and wewill see you again next week to see what's buzzing. Bye, everyone.