U.S. cracks down on foreign sellers

This, this is the Billion Dollar Sellers Podcast. Your go-to source for cutting-edge strategies and success stories from the world of Amazon and e-commerce. Buckle up and get ready to take your Amazon business to new heights. Don't forget to subscribe to the Billion Dollar Sellers Newsletter. Welcome your host, welcome your host, Kevin King. >> Hey everyone, welcome [music] to the Billion Dollar Sellers Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin King, and today is June 8th, 2026. We've got a lot to cover today, so let's jump right in. The big story today is the White House just signed an executive order cracking down on foreign sellers, and if you import inventory and sell on Amazon, this one really matters. We've also got some interesting marketplace stats comparing Amazon and Walmart, a free TikTok keyword tool most sellers don't even know exists, and the way to get a full competitive analysis on your Amazon listings using Claude for free. Plus new data from SimilarWeb on AI advertising that's uh honestly kind of a wake-up call for physical product brands. And the FTC just started enforcing the consumer review rule with real teeth, so we'll break down what that means for you. All right, here's your stump Bezos question for today. So, agentic commerce is still in pilot development mode now, right? Everybody's talking about it. How much does Juniper Research say agentic commerce will generate in sales by 2030? Think about that, and I'll give you the answer at the end of the show. All right, let's get into it. So, this first one is huge, and uh I think every seller needs to understand what just happened here. On June 3rd, the White House signed an executive order on strengthening customs enforcement, and uh the core idea in one line is this: foreign sellers now have to be as real, traceable, and accountable as US-based sellers already are. So, let me give you a little context on why this matters so much. For years, a foreign company could be the importer of record with no office, no employees, no bank accounts, and no assets in the US. So, when they undervalue goods, dodge tariffs, or ship junk, there's nobody to find and nothing to seize. American sellers have to play by the rules. These guys often didn't have to. And here's how big this got. Foreign sellers held about 18% of US marketplace sales in 2017. By 2023, they crossed 50% on Amazon. An estimated $220 billion in annual US marketplace sales runs through foreign sellers paying zero US income tax. That's a built-in 50% cost edge or US sellers on an identical product. Holy cow. So, what does this order actually do? First, real assets required. Every importer now has to hold a minimum level of tangible US assets and bonding. So, something real stands behind every shipment. Second, no more easy lane for foreign importers. They're barred from low scrutiny and formal entries, and they got post bonds, document fully, and get vetted through CTPAT, or use a validated US Customs Broker. Third, ownership is exposed. Importers got to disclose who actually owns the business, their affiliations, expected volumes, and US assets. So, it's way harder to hide behind a shell and reopen under a new name. Fourth, loopholes closed. Tougher enforcement on transshipment, undervaluation, and misclassification. All the classic tariff dodging tricks now carry real teeth. And fifth, penalties actually hurt. A 50% penalty floor, max penalties for bad brokers, no leniency for repeat offenders. Breaking the rules stops being a cheap cost of doing business. Now, how does this hit each type of seller? If you're a US-based FBA or wholesale seller, almost no new burden. You already file formal entries with a US entity, an EIN, and a bond. This forces your foreign competitors up to the standard you already meet. You're the group this helps the most. Foreign sellers using FBA now need real US assets, bonding, disclose ownership, and CTPAT or validated broker. Their costs and accountability rise toward parity with yours. And then for Temu, Shein, and all the direct-from-China drop ship sellers, this is where it really hurts. De minimis already got shut down in 2025, and now that informal entry line's gone, too. So, every parcel costs more, takes longer, and needs way more paperwork. That whole cheap and easy model they were riding on, it's basically done. So, the rule of thumb here is the more your business relied on slipping goods in cheaply with minimal accountability, the more this hurts. The more you already operate like a real US business, the more this works in your favor. And in terms of timing, most provisions kick out on the clock. Disclosure, penalty, and transparency rules get drafted within 90 days. And then the bigger stuff, the importer of record changes, asset requirements, the informal entry ban, or ship disclosure, uh all of that lands within 180 days. And there's a legislative recommendation package due in 45 days, so expect this to keep moving. Now, this doesn't fix everything. It doesn't touch platform-level tax collection or marketplace fee parity on its own, but it builds the foundation those fixes depend on. You can't enforce fair taxes or product safety against the seller you can't find, and now they're going to be someone to find. All right, let's talk about some interesting stats now. Um so, Marketplace Pulse just put out some data on marketplace versus first-party sales as a percentage of US e-commerce, and the difference between Walmart and Amazon is pretty wild. Walmart does about $150 billion in e-commerce, but only about 10% of that, roughly $15 billion, is third-party sellers. The other 90% is Walmart's own first-party sales. Amazon is basically the opposite, about $440 billion in e-commerce, and 69% of that, so roughly $304 billion, is third-party sellers. Only 31% is Amazon's own first-party retail. So, you know, Amazon's marketplace is massive compared to Walmart's, and it just shows how dependent Amazon is on us, third-party sellers, to drive their business. All right. So, this next one is a really cool tool that most sellers don't even realize exists. TikTok has something called Creator Search Insights, and it's basically a made of search research tool, and it's totally free. Think of it like Helium 10, but for TikTok content instead of Amazon listings. It shows you what people are actually typing into TikTok search, and then it tells you which of those topics have high demand, but not enough content to satisfy it. And that second part, you know, that's where the money is. There's a filter called content gap, and it shows you high searches with low supply. So, that's the white space. You make the video, you own the topic, you get the reach. No guessing. Uh there's also a second filter called searches by followers, but that one only turns on once you cross 1,000 followers. You can favorite topics to build a content queue, and TikTok also drops suggestions right into your profile banner, so you stop staring at a blank screen wondering what to post. And then it closes the loop. You tap analytics, and you can see how your posts rank in search, and then you can filter to adjust the inspired posts, the ones you made from topics the tool handed you, and measure if the research actually moved the needle. To find it, just open the TikTok app, tap search, type Creator Search Insights, and tap view. That's it. This is demand-side data straight from the platform telling you exactly where the audience is looking and where nobody's answering. So, if TikTok Shop is on your road map, this is where content strategy starts. All right. Now, let's take a look at the software tool of the day. So, you know, agencies charge like $5,000 for an Amazon competitor report, right? But Joe Lamb Maggio has put together a way to get one for free using Claude. You plug your ASIN into Claude, connect one data tool, and ask it for a full competitive analysis against your top five competitors. And what comes back is not a basic comparison table or a keyword overlap chart. It's a full strategic teardown, image by image, bullet by bullet. It even scores each listing on Alexa readiness, which is, you know, huge for where Amazon is heading. So, you can see exactly where your listing moves us to competitors and why. You can also find image types competitors use that you're missing. You spot pricing and offer gaps you didn't know existed, and you get that Alexa readiness score. Set up takes about 15 to 20 minutes. No coding, no expensive subscriptions, just Cloud One data connection and one SOP. And after that, you can run unlimited competitive analysis on any ASIN, any marketplace, anytime. There's a link in the show notes to grab the free SOP. All right, so this next one is really important, and I think it's one of those things that a lot of sellers aren't paying attention to yet, but they really should be. New Similarweb data just dropped on AI advertising, and the big takeaway is this: People aren't clicking anymore. They're deciding inside of conversations. Uh so, organic click share fell 11 to 23 points across every vertical in a single year, and less than 0.13% of all web referral traffic comes from AI, which sounds like AI doesn't matter. But, it's actually the opposite. Buyers aren't leaving a trail because the short list gets built before they ever visit a page. 35% of US shoppers now use AI for product discovery, and 70% of brands don't consistently show up in AI answers about their own category. So, if the model doesn't mean you, you're not in the running. Simple as that. And here's the thing about ChatGPT ads: Ads went live in ChatGPT on February 9th, and one in five conversations now carries one. And here's the part worth hearing twice: When ChatGPT serves a sponsored result, it shows one, not a page of competitors. One, yours or somebody else's. About 1,000 brands are buying so far, and the list is almost all SaaS and digital tools. Companies like HubSpot, Canva, Shopify, or Zapier, retail, CPG, health, and physical product brands are barely in the room. That's the early mover window, and it's not going to stay open. And this is not Google Shopping. 83% of queries that trigger a ChatGPT ad would never have triggered a Google Shopping ad. The system reads the whole conversation, it's not just a keyword, and only 2% of ad headlines even say buy now. People open with a problem, not a purchase. 46% of conversations start with zero buying intent and develop it as they talk. Someone asks how to care for a new puppy and walks away with a short list of products they never searched for. The money lives in that gap. So, the numbers that matter, overall CTR is 0.68%. Top brands hit 1.57%. The peak is 5.4%. For benchmarks, search usually runs 3 to 5%, display is about 0.35%, and podcast is 0.5 to 1%. Cost is about $60 CPM and 12 CPC. So, it's a premium CPM, but the click price actually competes with search once you factor in the intent behind it. And engagement is the real edge. ChatGPT chats run six times deeper than Google AI mode. 73% of people keep talking after the ad appears. The average chat is 17 turns with four more turns of brand exposure after the ad fires. So, you're buying presence, not glance. Now, for physical product sellers specifically, the one to really care about is AI overviews. It pulls product cards straight from your Google Shopping feed. Over 100,000 brands are already in there. Auto-populated and with no ad buy required. Clean, complete feed equals free visibility. Messy feed equals invisible. That's the whole equation. And rollout is moving fast. US, Canada, Australia are live. UK, Japan, South Korea are next. Both CPM and CPC are rising, so you can split spend by objective, awareness versus high-intent clicks. Now, I'll be honest, the gaps are real. Attribution isn't solved, the native tools give you no competitor or shared voice view, and nobody has long-term LTV benchmarks yet. You're flying with limited instruments, so plan accordingly. But, here's what you should do right now. First, win organic. Getting recommended inside AI answers is the cheaper, longer play, so build the content and reviews that make the model actually name you. Fix your shopping feed. It's your free on-ramp to AI overviews. Move into the empty room. Your category is mostly absent from ChatGPT ads, and that closes the moment your competitors wake up. And test with eyes open. Judge on blended lift, not last click. Attribution's going to lie to you right now. The shelf is moving. Show up where the conversation happens, or watch the model recommend the brand that did. All right. So, this next one is a big legal update, and if you're an Amazon seller, you really got to pay attention here. The education phase is over. The FTC is now enforcing the consumer review rule with real money behind it. Penalties run up to $53,088 per violation. Not per campaign, per violation. One bad email blast to your list could stack into the millions. So, here's what's now illegal. Paying for reviews. So, if you're offering a discount, a gift card, anything in exchange for a positive review, that's a direct violation. That whole leave us a five-star review and get 10% off thing, that's done. Cherry-picking. You can't filter out the one-star and two-star reviews and only show the good ones. Suppressing negative feedback counts as deception. Insider reviews. Your employees, your VAs, your family members, if they review your product without disclosing the relationship, that's a violation. Fake social proof. So, buying followers, likes, or views to look bigger than you are, and fake independent review sites. Running a review blog that looks neutral, but is secretly yours. And here's why this hits Amazon sellers harder than most. E-commerce is named as a top target. So is health, beauty, and wellness. So, if you sell supplements, skin care, anything in those lines, you're on the list. Your agency isn't a shield, either. If a third-party firm or PR shop runs shady review tactics on your behalf, the FTC can still come after you. I didn't know what they were doing is no longer a defense. And influencer slip-ups are your problem, too. If an affiliate or influencer fails to disclose a paid post, your brand can be held liable. So, here's what you should do this week. Audit your post-purchase email and SMS flows. If you offer anything for a review, it's got to be offered whether the review is good or bad, same incentive either way. Check your own website's review widget. You can pull spam and profanity, but you can't delete a review just because it's negative. Tell your team in writing that they got to disclose if they post about your products. And vet every influencer and affiliate for proper disclosure before they post. It's worth noting uh this goes after your own site and your off-Amazon marketing more than the Amazon platform itself, but the same principles apply. So, if you're running any kind of incentivized review program or steering buyers anywhere, now is the time to tighten that up. All right, before we wrap up, a few more hot picks for you. Amazon's been accused of tricking shoppers with subscribe and save in a new lawsuit. Amazon is now showing AI-generated product images in search results, which is uh pretty wild. Amazon just overtook Walmart to become the number one company on the Fortune 500. And ChatGPT has opened up ads to all businesses, so there's no more $50,000 minimum spend. That's a big deal for smaller brands looking to get in early. Links to all of those are in the show notes. And here's your parting shot for today. This one's from Tony Robbins. He said, "The price of ignorance in business is obsolescence. Obsolescence in business in short order means extinction." I think that's a really good one, you know, especially with everything happening right now with Customs Enforcement, AI advertising, and the FTC cracking down. The sellers who stay ahead of this stuff are the ones who survive. And finally, about that Stumptown Bezos question from the beginning, how much does Juniper Research say agentic commerce will generate in sales by 2030? The answer is $1.5 trillion. $1.5 trillion by 2030. Holy cow, that is a massive number, and it's in pilot mode right now, so just imagine where this is going to be in a few years. All right, that's That's for today, folks. Have a great week and I'll see you again on Thursday. This is Kevin King signing off from the Billion Dollar Sellers Podcast.