STUMP BEZOS
Amazon says they have a return drop off location within 5 miles of 80% of the U.S. population. How many drop off points are there?
[ Answer at bottom of email ]
👀 FIVE NUMBERS THAT TELL YOU IF A CREATOR WILL SELL
Most sellers pick TikTok creators the way they'd pick a billboard. Biggest audience, done. Then the samples ship, three videos post, nothing sells, and the seller decides TikTok doesn't work.
A BDSC panel with three people on the other side of that transaction fixed the vetting. Jordyn runs partnerships at EUKA.ai, a creator-sourcing platform. Gracey (@dealcheats, 1.3 million followers) has driven about $14 million in GMV. Arbel (@freelancebigsis) coaches roughly 4,000 creators.
Why the follower count lies
Ninety-three percent of TikTok videos are shown to people who don't follow the creator. Followers are close to irrelevant to reach. And most brand revenue on TikTok Shop comes from micro-creators under 30,000 followers, because they read as normal people and normal people sell.
The five numbers that matter
Post-fulfillment rate. Filter for 70% and up. Below that, they're collecting free product and posting for a fraction of it.
Engagement ratio. Likes and comments relative to impressions. Raw view counts are noise.
Shares and saves. The truest signal that the content moved someone to act.
Consistency. Ten posts at similar numbers beats one viral hit followed by 30 views.
Comment quality. Repeat names, inside jokes, people following the creator's story. That's a community, and communities buy.
Two things to ignore: followers, and GMV on its own. One viral video inflates GMV for a month and says nothing about whether they'll sell your product. Ian's practical filter inside Join Brands: $10K+ GMV, 89%+ post rate, matching niche. For scale, only about 10,000 of the 3 million-plus TikTok creators do $10K in GMV at all.
Fix the cold start before you reach out
Creators vet you too. A store with no sales and no videos gets ignored. Ian's fix is a seeding round: roughly 100 creators each buy the product on TikTok Shop (a real sale) and post a video, for around $2,500 plus product cost. Now your store shows sales and videos, and the better creators say yes.
The first message
Gracey's rule: the message is about them, and it's complete. Commission percentage, the sample offer, the next step, and the invite into your creator community, all in message one. Nothing about your accolades, no "me, me, me."
Arbel's rule: if you've done volume on Amazon, say so in the first line. Reference reviews and a product link. Never open with "dear" or "hey baby." Those read as scams because they usually are.
Personalize it. Name a specific video of theirs. Match their language (Spanish creators get Spanish). Use more than one channel: DM, email, text.
After the sample ships
Jordyn's point, and the one most brands miss: the conversation isn't over when the label prints. Message on shipment. Wait for the content. Thank them after it posts. Creators run in circles and recruit each other, and the ones treated well recruit for you.
Give them bullet points, never a script to read. Specific hooks, the pain point, fast cuts. Then let them make it.
Pay to keep the winners
Ian Page of JoinBrands starts commission high, 35% on organic sales and 10% on ad-driven sales, and doesn't try to make TikTok profitable in the first 90 days. He gamifies it: hit $500 in GMV, earn a $50 to $100 bonus.
Then find the 1 to 10% of creators driving most of the revenue and lock them in. Once someone clears about $500 in commission, offer a retainer: a typical deal is $300 a month for 30 videos plus commission.
Top creators often prefer a higher commission over a flat fee, so ask. Build the community around them: a WhatsApp group, a weekly call, a Discord. Retainers of $500 to $1,000 a month, co-funded ads on winning videos, even 50/50 profit splits are all on the table for the few who move product.
Pull your last ten creators and score them on the five numbers. You'll know by lunch which ones to keep.
Both sessions, including where to find creator events, what happens at them, and how the big brands treat their affiliates, are inside the Billion Dollar Sellers Club with a lot more like them. Try it for $9 at billiondollarsellers.club.
Amazon’s AI Video Just Got Good
Amazon is hiding an actually good AI video ad generator in a hidden spot.. deep in the ad console.
This isn't the AI generated Amazon slop you're used to.
This is Amazon’s advanced video builder made for streaming TV.
Ya. The placement we all stay far far away from..
But ... there's a hack.
You can actually make these videos in the streaming TV ad builder then port them over to sponsored brand video ads (the actually profitable ad type.
Chris just made a video walking step by step exactly how. You can watch it now while it's still up.
This video not only shows you exactly how to set up Amazon secret advanced AI video ad builder - it also shows an 8% ACoS example.
🔭 YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
Are you spending hours creating videos only to get terrible click-through rates?
The harsh reality is that if your title fails, your entire content strategy fails. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Kevin King and Norm Farrar sit down with Jake Thomas, founder of the Creator Hooks newsletter and a leading expert on YouTube title psychology.
Jake breaks down why changing just one or two words can be the difference between a thousand views and a million views. He explains how to leverage the three "click-worthy" emotions, curiosity, fear, and desire, to craft irresistible titles that deliver on their promise.
Whether you are trying to capture browse traffic or rank in search, this episode provides a masterclass on writing titles that actually convert.
🔥 Subscribe to the Marketing Misfits Newsletter
🌎 INTERESTING STATS
🤖 SHOPPERS AREN’T SWITCHING to AI. THEY’RE STACKING IT
Similarweb and Statista just released their State of Ecommerce 2026 report. 71 pages covering July 2025 through June 2026. Here's what matters to sellers.
The big picture
AI showed up in 11.4% of US shopping journeys that ended on a retail site in June. Two years ago: 4.5%.
89% of those AI journeys also used search. Only 11% used AI alone. Shoppers explore in ChatGPT, then buy through Google or Amazon.
AI is a middle touchpoint 76% of the time. First stop 23%. Last click 18%. But the first and last shares are rising.
Journeys using both AI and search visit nearly 15 sites and convert at 23%, the highest of any path. Messy shoppers are high-intent shoppers.
When AI recommends a brand, shoppers are more likely to visit it over a competitor within seven days. In some matchups, close to 2-to-1.
AI referrals: tiny share, huge growth
Gen AI referrals are 0.4% of ecommerce visits. 0.3% on marketplaces. Smallest channel everywhere.
Growing 203% year over year. 226% on marketplaces. 271% in beauty.
Direct traffic (44% of visits) grew 1.2%. Organic search grew 1%. On marketplaces, organic search fell 2.5%.
Paid search +22.8%. Paid social +32.5%. Display +26.8%.
Watch the growth rate, not the share.
Alexa for Shopping (formerly Rufus)
The bigger AI story is inside Amazon, not outside it.
Product page traffic from Alexa for Shopping is up 537% year over year, and 26% month over month after the May rebrand.
It plays by different rules than search. The assistant favors Sponsored Products and brands the shopper already bought. Skip sponsored, and you're not in the conversation.
Shoppers prompt in attribute bundles, not keywords. "Quiet, under $40, works with X." Your listing data has to answer all three at once.
Amazon by category
Amazon US moved 20.8 billion units, up 14.4%.
Winners: Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry +33.7% (2.7B units). Grocery +18.1%. Beauty +14.9%. Tools & Home Improvement +14.6%.
Laggards: Electronics +1.5%. Pet Supplies +3.1%. Home & Kitchen +8.3%.
Catalogs are growing faster than attention. At nearly every big retailer, SKU counts outpaced views per product. Walmart cut its beauty assortment nearly 40% and views per listing rose.
US beauty pricing: the $20 to $30 band is the sweet spot. The $100 to $200 band is bloated, with listings growing at twice the category rate and views per listing at less than half.
What this means for you
Product data is your AI SEO. AI referral winners are ingredient-heavy and spec-heavy brands. La Roche-Posay ranks #75 in beauty traffic and #10 in AI referrals. The Ordinary: #36 overall, #8 from AI. Abercrombie: #32 in fashion, #9 from AI. Shein drops four spots. Detail wins. Vague loses.
Don't split AI and search into two projects. Same shopper, same session. Build on your SEO and extend it.
Write for multi-constraint questions. Bullets and A+ should answer "best X for Y under $Z that also does W."
Budget for paid. In fashion, paid plus display now drive 33.8% of visits and passed direct traffic. Rand Fishkin's take in the report: this gets expensive for challenger brands and smaller sellers.
Launch into the tailwind. Fashion, grocery, beauty, tools. Electronics is a price-fatigued research grind.
Check your DTC site on a phone. 86.5% of US shoppers primarily buy on mobile. App sessions are growing 1.3x faster than web visits.
What's coming
Global B2C ecommerce hits $4.9 trillion by 2030, up 27% from 2026. US: $1.5 trillion. AI drove almost 2% of worldwide ecommerce revenue growth from 2024 to 2025.
Agentic checkout is real. Google's Universal Commerce Protocol and OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol let shoppers buy without leaving the chat. NIQ and Similarweb launch an agentic commerce measurement product in Q4 2026.
Trust lags. A third of shoppers let AI narrow choices. Four in ten trust it to recommend. Only 21% would let it buy. Highest among Gen Z and millennials, highest in fashion and electronics, lowest in luxury.
The near future: AI narrows the field. Search and Amazon close the sale. Brands named in the narrowing step win the sale two or three clicks later. Within 18 to 24 months, checkout starts happening inside the assistant for younger shoppers in apparel and electronics.
Get your product data ready for a machine to reason over it. That's the whole game.
📩 WHEN to SEND YOUR BLACK FRIDAY EMAILS
Everyone is writing Black Friday emails right now. Subject lines. Hero images. Discount stacks. Countdown timers.
Almost nobody has picked the send times.
That's backwards. On Black Friday your subscriber's inbox gets hit by every brand they have ever bought from. Your email doesn't win on copy that day. It wins on when it lands.
Omnisend pulled the engagement data on Black Friday sends, and three windows explain most of the day.
The three windows
6 to 9 AM. Deal hunters. They check their phone before they get out of bed, compare prices and build the list for the day. Nothing else has their attention yet.
12 to 2 PM. Lunch break. They have time, they have intent, and the credit card is already out. This is where abandoned carts get finished.
8 to 10 PM. Impulse hours. The day is winding down, they're on the couch, and "ends at midnight" hits hardest when they have time to think about missing it.
Everything in between is a lull. Send at 10:30 AM and you land under the pile.
Give each send a job
Don't send one email at 9 AM and hope. Give each window a specific job and write (or reuse) one email for that job.
6 to 7 AM: Early access for your VIPs. Repeat buyers, top spenders, your best segment. They get in first. That's the reward for being on the list.
8 to 9 AM: Main launch to the full list. This is the big one. It gives them the whole day to act.
12 to 1 PM: Flash sale or bundle. One product, one offer, one button. Lunch browsers buy fast.
3 to 4 PM: Inventory update. "Selling fast" or "under 40 left" on your hero SKU. It's the afternoon lull, and this is a cheap reminder.
8 to 10 PM: Final hours. Deadline, price going back up, gone at midnight. Keep it short.
That's four or five sends on Black Friday. Yes, that's a lot. It's also the one day a year the list expects it. Unsubscribes will tick up. Revenue will tick up more.
Resend the winner
Here's the part most sellers skip. Your best Black Friday email might be one you already wrote, just sent again at a better hour.
Take your 8 AM launch email. At 8 PM, resend it to everyone who didn't click, with a new subject line. Same offer, same body, new hour. Omnisend watched a fashion brand add 7.47% more revenue per campaign doing exactly this, reaching about 2,100 extra subscribers per send.
Klaviyo, Omnisend and Mailchimp all have a resend-to-non-openers toggle. Use it, but filter on "didn't click" instead of "didn't open." Apple Mail marks a lot of unread email as opened, so the open filter leaves money on the table.
Send in their time zone, not yours
8 AM in Austin is 6 AM in Los Angeles and 9 AM in New York. Schedule one send at 8 AM Central and a chunk of your list gets it in the lull.
Every major ESP has a "send at recipient's local time" option. Turn it on. If your list skews to one coast, schedule for that coast.
Build it for a phone in the dark
Over 60% of BFCM purchases now happen on a smartphone. Your 6 AM email is being read in bed with one thumb.
Subject line under 40 characters and seven words. Body under 480 words. Three to six products, not thirty. Two or three buttons, not eight. The first button sits above the fold on a phone or it doesn't exist.
Amazon sellers, one extra step
If the email points to your Amazon listing, use an Amazon Attribution link. You'll see which send drove the sales, and you'll collect the Brand Referral Bonus, which averages about 10% of the sale back as a credit against referral fees.
If you're running a Lightning Deal or Best Deal with a fixed window, land the email 30 to 60 minutes before it opens, in whichever of the three windows is closest. "Deal goes live at noon" sent at 11:15 is the flash sale slot doing double duty.
Do this today
Black Friday is November 27. Open your calendar. Put the three windows on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, the weekend and Cyber Monday. Assign one email to each slot. Turn on local-time sending. Turn on resend to non-clickers.
Then go back to writing.
The copy is the easy part. The clock is the edge.
🔥 MORE HOT PICKS 🔥
🥃 PARTING SHOT
“I am wealthy in my friends.”
✌🏼 Have a great weekend.
See you again on Monday.
The answer to today’s STUMP BEZOS is
Amazon has slightly over 10,000 drop-off location for returns
