Amazon Accelerate is Amazon's annual premier seller conference, providing sellers and potential selling partners with a unique opportunity to connect with Amazon experts and fellow sellers. The event is designed to help sellers expand their networks, gain insights from inspiring speakers, and discover the latest innovations aimed at accelerating business growth on the Amazon platform. It serves as a valuable resource for both current selling partners and those interested in selling on Amazon.
Kicking off day one, the spotlight shone brightly on Amazon’s commitment to fostering innovation and ensuring seller success. The Keynote session outlined 5 central themes which reflected a multifaceted approach. This year, it’s about more than creating an unparalleled platform for launching and nurturing brands; it will involve steadfast partnership, walking alongside the seller at each phase of their entrepreneurial journey. Beyond business, the keynote emphasized Amazon’s dedication as a catalyst for positive change in local communities, underlining its role as a force for good in the broader societal landscape.
Keynote Themes:
- Delivering innovative capabilities to empower your success
- Building a valuable and inclusive community where your voice is heard
- An amazing place to launch and build a successful brand
- Partnering with you at every stage of your journey
- A force for good in local communities
This year, Amazon unveiled a multitude of innovations aimed at redefining the seller experience, and we’re diving into them all! Key introductions included Supply Chain by Amazon (SCBA), Amazon Emerald integration, and an ambitious commitment made to resolve over 5 million support issues! Highlights also featured Gen-AI powered product description assistance, AR enhancements for immersive shopping, and the Fit Insights tool to refine apparel sizing. Sellers can also anticipate protective measures against fraud, enriched customer analytics for marketing, and the incorporation of deals and promotions into the Seller app. With a focus on sustainability, Amazon introduced eco-conscious packaging initiatives, added Climate Pledge Friendly certifications, and commended purpose-driven businesses with significant grants. Details on all programs below:
New Feature Announcements!
Supply Chain by Amazon (SCBA) and Amazon Shipping:
- SCBA aims to improve the end-to-end supply chain process for sellers.
- New and legacy tools within the end-to-end SCBA solution include Global Logistics, Partnered Carrier Program, Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD), and Amazon Shipping.
- Features like Auto Replenishment offer efficiency and cost savings.
- SCBA streamlines global shipping solutions, providing operational relief for sellers.
- Amazon shipping is expected to be a game changer for FBM Sellers.
- Currently available in 15 metro areas and will feature 7 day per week pick up and delivery
- Picks up from seller location, delivers direct to consumer with tracking and photo on delivery. Also available for non-Amazon orders!
- Additional days and faster ship speeds have led to a 7% sales lift, on average, for sellers testing the program.
🔥HOT TIP - AWD will not include peak season rate hikes like FBA. So, utilizing AWD as your storage solution and allowing Amazon to auto-replenish upstream into FBA can save a seller as much as 80% on fees during peak season!
Amazon Emerald Launch:
- Amazon Emerald, a global pilot program, makes it easier for Sellers to manage and act on key business updates from your third-party apps by integrating app notifications directly into Seller Central.
- Emerald notifications are available for more than a dozen third-party applications, with more to be added in the months ahead.
- Emerald is still a closed program that is not currently accepting new service providers. Spring 2024 is the rumored GA date, but we’ll bring you more details as they are available!
- Visit the program page here
🔥HOT TIP - AO2 partner Seller Labs Pro is an Amazon Emerald App! Are you a PRO user? If so, you can check out the new alert feature today on your Seller Labs homepage.
Seller Support Improvements:
- The Seller Support team is heavily focused on reducing "root cause" issues so that the same problem types can stop impacting sellers unnecessarily. As part of this initiative, the team is aiming to fix 5 million support issues at the source!
- The most exciting upcoming feature in this topic area was the option for sellers to "Escalate My Case" for complex issues, but speaker Jenna Owens, Director of Selling Partner Support, didn’t dive too much into exactly how this would work or how it is different from existing methods available to sellers. General info seems to point to a one-click button option to move things along faster in existing cases.
- The Seller Forum receives 2500+ visits daily, so it makes sense that additional features were announced to enhance the Seller Forums experience. In addition to a new look, the Seller Forums will be amped up this quarter with regular Ask Amazon sessions, Engage with Amazon posts, and daily seller polls.
- Mary Beth Westmoreland, VP of Seller Experience, spoke about the many enhancements that were already rolled out to the Seller Central homepage to make this experience more of a “control center” organized around actionable messages. Initial Seller feedback indicates this has been achieved, citing a 29% decrease spent finding critical activities and a 37% decrease in time to take actions!
- Updates have also been made to the Seller Messaging Assistant chatbot that buyers interact within the Amazon shopping app. This chatbot takes the burden off of sellers by automatically answering buyer order questions by detecting key phrases, like “tracking and return”, and pulling answers directly from order details.
Gen-AI Listing Management and new AR:
- There was big buzz around Amazon launching a generative AI tool to help sellers write product descriptions and large-language models to simplify listing creation.
- Sellers can enter a few words, and the system generates complete listing content.
- Soon, sellers can submit a URL or photo for automatic attribute generation and updates.
- Gen-AI improves listing quality and reduces errors in product listings.
- New enhancements coming to the View in Your Room tool, which will allow shoppers to view smaller items on their table or countertop via AR. Visualize products on tables and countertops.
- The View in Your Room feature uses augmented reality to help customers visualize how products would look in their space. In addition to items placed on the floor, it was announced at Accelerate that this feature is now available for items that fit on your tabletop on iOS and Android devices.
- The new experience is available for more than 200 tabletop product types, such as lamps and home décor!
To learn more, go to View in Your Room.
This concludes part 1 of our Amazon Accelerate recap. Please refer to this link to take a look at the video recap. Part 2 coming soon!
