Major Prime Day Changes in 2023
Some of Amazon’s policies in the past discouraged its selling partners to sell their products cheaper outside Amazon.
But for the first time ever, the e-commerce giant is encouraging customers to buy products outside of its platform.
What’s the catch?
Amazon Top Terms
Let's dig into the past two weeks and check out which of Amazon's search terms had a major surge in popularity between June 4th and 17th. Get ready to explore the terms that are gaining popularity on Amazon!
“Amazon Fathers Day gift card” has made it into this week's Amazon Top 10 terms. Father's Day is one of the most popular shopping events, so people had been flocking to Amazon to find gifts for their dads.
Amazon has definitely taken a good piece of the cake with this event, solidifying its dominance in the online retail space.
Tricked Into Prime Enrollment?
With the increased Prime membership fee, the last thing you want as an Amazon shopper is to be enrolled in the program when you don’t want to.
But according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), this is exactly what Amazon is doing.
On top of that, the company allegedly makes the cancellation process all the more difficult.
If you’ve been subscribed to our newsletters for a while now, you may have known about these “dark patterns” that Amazon allegedly uses to trick consumers into subscribing to Prime. These are design tactics employed to make buyers purchase products unknowingly.
The Commission says this practice violates the FTC Act as well as the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, which is why it instituted an action to make Amazon answer.
However, Amazon belied the FTC’s claim, saying that they design the site to “make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership.”
Less Than a Week Left Before D-Day
Amazon has been urging third-party sellers to comply with verification requirements for months now to be compliant with the INFORM Consumers Act. However, with less than a week left, some sellers are worried they might not make it before the deadline.
In an announcement, Amazon reminded sellers that the INFORM Act will take effect in the US on June 27.
However, the discussion was met with complaints from selling partners. Some are saying that the postcard containing the code needed for verification might reach them beyond the June 27 deadline. Others aired their frustrations about being told that everything is okay but still not getting rid of the deactivation notification.
A petition for a 90-day delay in the implementation of the Act is currently ongoing. If you need a guide, we have an article about how you can correctly verify your seller information on Amazon.
ChatGPT’s Marketplace
Online marketplaces like Amazon are integrating more AI into their system to make their processes more efficient.
A woman’s hand is asking an AI chatbot pre-typed questions & the Artificial Intelligence website is answering.
More sites might be able to do this more easily now since OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is launching a marketplace for AI software.
The Information reports that the company plans to launch a marketplace that will allow developers to sell their models to businesses.
