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Welcome back, eCommercers—especially the ones juggling freight quotes, diaper listings, and a sudden distrust of TikTok’s algorithm.
I waded through the usual sludge of Amazon updates, fintech fumbles, and marketplace chaos to pull out what actually matters this week. Whether you’re still figuring out where the Vine program went wrong (spoiler: everywhere), or debating if Chase’s new card is a fancy scam, I’ve got you.
This isn’t a guru pitch. It’s not a vibe. It’s ops and insight from someone who still schleps boxes and tracks LTV the hard way.
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What do most sellers plan to do this year?
A) Product Research
B) Inventory Management
C) PPC Management
Answer at the bottom of the email
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💳 Chase Sapphire for Sellers? Hard Pass.
Let’s talk credit cards. We all use PPC. Getting 4x points on PPC is something we're all doing (I hope). This card claims to offer unlimited 3x points on ads.
Chase just announced their new Sapphire Reserve Business card with a $795 annual fee—because clearly, someone at Chase thinks they’re AMEX now.
Sure, they’re flashing 8x on Chase Travel, 4x on flights, and some shiny new hotel perks—but if you're an Amazon seller, that doesn’t move the needle.
Here’s how I think about it: If your annual fee doesn’t pay you back in actual value, you’re being taken for a ride. That’s it.
Compare that to the combo I swear by:
You can actually make back your fee and then some. Not in vibes or hotel upgrades. In cold, hard points AND Cash Bonuses.
Now the Sapphire card might appeal to the DTC brand founder who’s booking team retreats in Lisbon and writing it off as “brand building.”
But if you’re grinding in FBA, calculating ROI down to the SKU, and wrangling prep center pallets—not worth it.
So unless you’re planning to max out $120K a year through Chase Travel, just smile politely and swipe elsewhere.
Your Amazon and Google Ads should still code as advertising with Amex Gold and trigger 4x points—but check your statements. That loophole is closing fast (mine didn't code as ads until this year).
P.S - A great resource for this card is reviewed here.
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I came across Joe's tweet and thought well this system's been in place forever, it wasn't rocket science. Kevin King said that this tweet kept him up at night thinking this was revelatory.
But I ask you, didn't Amazon tell us by:
- Launching the Voice of the Customer page
- Showing us our average response time to customers
- Showing us our average on time shipping rate to customers
- Showing us our average on time delivery rate to customers
- Showing us if the CUSTOMER believes the issue they messaged us about is resolved.
After you see all these developments, isn't it obvious that there's some overall calculation Amazon curates for every seller that then factors into who wins over the buy box on certain listings?
Doesn't it make sense that sellers with a higher "goodie-good" score get more traffic thrown their way.
Simply put, if Amazon gives you a higher goodie good score, they have a self interest in thinking you'll make that customer happy and bring the both of you (Amazon then you, in that order) more money.
Amazon set out to build a customer first platform. You better bet that putting that customer first will benefit you in this ecosystem.
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Your Amazon Clown of the Week .. Someone thought to use logic, then well.. you'll see.
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🤖 Rufus Doesn’t Blush: AI for Sensitive Niches
Big hat tip to Ron Shah & Ash Melwani’s Chew On This for this gem: 📈 How Tushy Boosted Sales 85% Without Hiring a Single Rep. It’s worth reading in full, but here’s what stuck with me as an Amazon seller:
Tushy’s AI isn’t just saving them customer service headcount. It’s converting more sales than humans—and not just because it’s fast. It’s because bots don’t get awkward talking about awkward things. And that’s a lesson I want every seller of sensitive products to internalize.
If your product deals with body parts, bodily functions, private health concerns—whatever people don’t want to talk about in public—your best friend might be a bot. Not a pitchy, clunky one. A well-trained one. Like Amazon’s Rufus.
When customers search for something sensitive on Amazon, they don’t want to scroll through Reddit or call your support line. They want quick, clear, judgment-free answers. If Rufus can provide that? Your listing wins. If he can’t? Your customer bounces, or worse, reports you.
So here’s my take:
Don’t be afraid to let Rufus do the talking.
But be very careful how you feed him your content. Some terms will suppress your listing. Others may not trigger the right answers.
Use your backend search terms wisely.
Skip the alt text if it’s risky—Rufus pulls from those fields too.
For sellers in sensitive niches, Rufus isn’t just support—it’s sales enablement. Treat him like your front-line salesperson, not just a search tool.
And remember: what’s taboo for humans might be the sweet spot for AI.
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This should be made a much bigger deal than it's been so far.
I've long contended that Amazon's whole push of setting up brands with storefronts, attribution links, and even linking out to other DTC sites is a defense they'll use against the FTC's case claiming Amazon engages in monopolistic practices against sellers.
Creatively, Logitech implemented a cool "hack-ish" way to take a quiz before Amazon released the quiz feature that they did this week.
This is yet another empowerment of Amazon to us sellers to keep using their platform so that the Amazon beast can grow.
No complaints here, but a perspective. And yes, I definitely plan on using this. Logitech already updated their storefront with this feature, lol.
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📉 TikTok’s Organic Pullback Isn’t Out of Panic. It’s Out of Confidence.
I’ve seen a few newsletters suggest that TikTok’s slow fadeaway from free organic exposure is driven by urgency — that with a U.S. ban looming (June 19 to be exact), they’re scrambling to monetize while they still can.
It's not a surprise that this news broke while the "final" 55% tariff deal with China hit.
I don’t buy it. And here’s why.
TikTok’s behavior lately doesn’t scream “platform under siege.” It screams stabilized operator preparing for a long-term U.S. play.
I think they’re pulling back organic exposure not out of fear, but out of security — specifically, political security. With Trump openly floating an extension to keep TikTok legally operating in the U.S., and ByteDance signaling confidence behind the scenes, TikTok seems to be making peace with its American future.
That’s exactly why they’re turning off the faucet.
Think about it: if TikTok really thought they had 60 days left to live, they’d be flooding the ecosystem with incentives to hook people, not tightening them. They’d lean into sellers, creators, and subsidies to lock in brand loyalty fast. Instead, they’re ramping down free perks — just like Amazon did, just like Meta did.
They’re maturing. Not because they have to. Because they can.
So while I agree with Paul from Shopifreaks that we’re no longer in the golden age of TikTok Shop freebies, I see this shift through a different lens.
It’s not a frantic cash grab. It’s TikTok saying:
"We’re not going anywhere. Let’s build this business right."
And that’s something we sellers should take very seriously.
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🫠 Vine for Resellers? Who Asked for This?
So apparently, Amazon’s decided resellers can now enroll in Amazon Vine.
Yes, resellers. As in, people flipping someone else’s branded product... can now “generate reviews” for that product’s listing—as long as they’re authorized by the brand.
...Yeah. I’ll wait while you stop laughing.
Let’s be real: no brand authorizes resellers. They tolerate us (barely), blacklist us (frequently), or issue us Vorys letters (inevitably). This idea that a reseller and a brand are going to hold hands and build a glowing review section together? Delusional. Sanctimonious. Ludicrous.
This had to be cooked up in a conference room where nobody’s ever shipped into FBA, listed against an ASIN, or been hit with an inauthentic complaint.
What reseller in their right mind wants to invest free units just to boost a brand owner’s listing that they don’t control?
None.
Unless you’re somehow selling with the brand (good luck), this feature is just a hallucination in Vine's sandbox.
So while the Vine page tells us it’ll “boost cold start ASINs” and “build awareness,” what it’s really doing is trying to sell you on a fantasy world where brands and resellers cooperate. Meanwhile, in reality, we’re just trying not to get delisted every 30 days.
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AI Wrote My Amazon Appeal—And Even the Detectors Couldn’t Agree
In submitting some seller performance appeals this week I used AI (forgive me for I have sinned). Out of curiosity I checked it through a couple of AI detectors.
I laughed out of worry and relief. 100% was AI written. What is the true ability of platforms to detect AI text? Gosh.
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This week on my DTC site I desperately needed an update to a form I have listed, and listed quick. I was afraid as can be to mess around with my Shopify liquid files, but did anyways.
On to my friend ChatGPT, in one single prompt it did what I would've had to farm out to a dev to do on the next business day.
The key? I accompanied my code with a screenshot of the page I needed to be modified.
Hope this tips helps you in a related way.
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Floor Loaded Trailers
This week Amazon announced that you can select a floor loaded option in their workflow for sending trucks to FBA. While FBA's accepted floor loaded trailers forever, I thought to myself why add this feature now?
True that we get an additional 3ish ft of height on a full 53ft trailer that we can pack with more merchandise, but are that many people really using this option. Nonetheless, that need it in the FBA workflow?
If you're sending floor loaded trailers, you're advanced. The amount of time and manpower it'll take to pack a floor loaded trailer is a much bigger time commitment than a palletized one.
I can't think of why Amazon decided to do this now.
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🧠 Amazon Sellers, You’re Not Paranoid — You’re Just Early.
Amazon sellers are built different.
We don’t trust people.
We don’t trust platforms.
We barely trust our own VA with a shipping label.
So let’s talk about something really unsurprising:
Your “deleted” ChatGPT chats aren’t actually deleted.
(No shock there, right?)
Turns out OpenAI is keeping them all.
Even the ones you thought were gone.
Why? Because The New York Times is suing them — and your chats might help prove OpenAI trained on copyrighted material.
Translation:
Your half-baked product ideas and supplier messages are now potential courtroom evidence.
Not for “product improvement.”
Not to “make the model better.”
Just straight-up legal defense.
They say it’s restricted to a “legal team.”
Sure.
And Amazon sellers always play by the rules, right?
Unless you're on Enterprise, Edu, or zero-retention setups…
Your prompts are being stored. Period.
This isn’t tinfoil hat stuff. It’s just business as usual in a world where data is currency and privacy is fiction.
Want to stay off the digital record?
- Use temporary sessions - may still be saved, but may be a step better than using a regular coversation?
- Never type anything sensitive
- Assume everything lives forever
Because if you’re typing secrets into ChatGPT thinking it’s safe?
You deserve whatever “innovation” someone else launches next month with your idea.
Forward this to sellers who still believe in the Easter Bunny, GDPR, or “delete” buttons.
P.S. - Ever type something into ChatGPT, then delete it and reword it just in case? Yeah, same. Welcome to the club.
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The answer is A. Product research. 34% of sellers, a plurality in this poll stated that finding a new (or
first) product to sell was #1 priority this year
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Forward this to a seller who thinks “Vine for resellers” is a good idea — then check on them later.
📬 Got thoughts, rants, or receipts? Hit reply or DM me.
We’re all Just Sellers. Might as well act like it.
Until next week,
Charles Chakkalo
JustASellerNewsletter.com
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