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Billion Dollar Sellers
Aug 11, 2026
Ecom trends sellers should know for 2026
Ecom trends sellers should know for 2026
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12:05
Transcript
0:00
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.
0:10
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.
0:22
Welcome to The Billion Dollar Sellers podcast. I'm your host, Kevin King, and today is Thursday, January eighth, twenty twenty-six.
0:29
Before we get started, I wanna let you know about an opportunity to transform your e-commerce business with insider tactics from myself and top experts.
0:38
To stay on the cutting edge, you can join the Billion Dollar Sellers Club for just nine dollars for thirty days, then ninety-nine dollars a month after that.
0:45
And right now, when you join, you get free access to BDSS thirteen live. I've put a link to that in the show notes. Now, I've got a question for you.
0:54
In the past year, how much purchasing power has been lost annually by each potential customer due to tariff pass-throughs? I'll give you the answer at the end of the show.
1:03
First up today, let's talk about twenty twenty-six e-commerce trends and what Amazon sellers need to know.
1:10
Publicis Commerce just dropped their predictions report, and three major themes stand out for marketplace sellers. The first theme is that agentic commerce is here, whether we're ready or not.
1:21
The big shift is AI agents moving from research tools to actual shopping assistants.
1:26
ChatGPT's instant checkout rollout marks the beginning of conversational AI driving revenue, not just helping people decide what to buy. But here's the catch.
1:35
While consumer adoption may lag expectations in twenty twenty-six, the brands building expertise in agentic engine optimization now will dominate in twenty twenty-seven and beyond.
1:45
This means optimizing your product data, your content, and your checkout infrastructure for AI discovery. But this is not rolling out evenly for every region.
1:53
Germany still can't complete purchases in ChatGPT yet, while the US is seeing early traction. Get your basics in place now. That means structured catalogs, clean feeds, and parsable product information.
2:04
The second major theme is that social commerce is becoming an operating system. TikTok Shop is now the fastest growing retailer in human history.
2:13
Social commerce is shifting from a nice-to-have channel to a core operating reality, especially for CPG brands reaching younger demographics. There are some key developments to watch for in twenty twenty-six.
2:25
Influencer affiliates will drive massive sales, particularly in APAC. Content quality matters more than ever as AI takes over optimization levers. And TikTok will become a top retail media network for CPG brands.
2:38
So brands must establish clear affiliate guidelines to protect brand equity. The ecosystem of creators, affiliates, and peer networks will drive more purchase decisions than traditional ads.
2:49
The third theme is retail media facing its reckoning. After years of explosive growth, retail media is entering a scrutiny phase.
2:56
Brands are demanding clear incrementality, stronger measurement standards, and provable ROI. There's a measurement paradox here. Retail media has been immensely measurable but phenomenally unmeasured.
3:08
Expect real progress in twenty twenty-six as IAB sets clearer definitions and LLMs make it easier to unlock insights from data lakes. And sponsored ads aren't dying.
3:18
Despite predictions that shopping with AI agents will kill sponsored products, expect disruption rather than extinction. The catch is smaller result sets, lower ad loads, and higher CPCs.
3:30
There's also new competition coming. Non-traditional commerce media networks from travel, financial services, telecoms, and transportation will explode in twenty twenty-six, fighting for non-endemic advertiser dollars.
3:43
There are some other trends worth watching. One key trend is personalization at scale. Generic shopper journeys are dead, and hyper-personalization becomes essential for retailers to defend against AI disintermediation.
3:57
Physical contextual targeting is another big trend. Smart stores, airplane seats, hotel TVs, and rideshare screens will enable sophisticated real-world targeting. Streaming consolidation is also happening.
4:09
Watch for reduced retailer-streamer partnerships as retail data becomes ubiquitous in DSPs. And emotion still matters.
4:16
As everyone chases AI efficiency, brands that understand the emotional drivers of purchase decisions will stand out. The pace of change is accelerating faster than most commerce marketers are adapting.
4:27
The winners in twenty twenty-six will be those who optimize for AI discovery now, even if adoption is slow.
4:33
They meet shoppers on social platforms with authentic content, demand real measurement from retail media investments, and build personalized experiences that AI agents can't easily disintermediate.
4:45
Don't wait for the final form to emerge. Start building the capabilities today.
4:50
Speaking of optimization, if you wanna turn your Amazon PPC into a profitable growth engine in just five days, check out the Profitable PPC Challenge. It's the largest digital Amazon PPC training event in the world.
5:03
Here's what's on the agenda for day three of the Profitable PPC Challenge.
5:08
You'll get ten example breakdowns of AI PPC video ads that outperform human ads, and a step-by-step guide on how to use Now Banana Pro to CTR hack through mass split testing, plus a Rufus optimization checklist, how to rank for cheap using sponsored brand video, and a full PPC campaign walkthrough on five profitable eight-figure Amazon brands.
5:31
You can secure your twenty-seven dollar early bird ticket now, and remember that every prior event has sold out. I've put a link to that in today's show notes. Next, here's something you gotta see.
5:41
If you teach, coach, sell information, or run an online business, this episode of Marketing Misfits is a wake-up call. In this episode, Norm Farrar and I speak with Dan Ashburn, co-founder of Titan Network.
5:53
We break down how AI agentic systems, personal brand, and community are reshaping marketing, e-commerce, and education at a speed most businesses are not prepared for Dan explains why creators, educators, and consultants who don't integrate AI into real-time execution will end up like Blockbuster, while those who do will build the next Netflix.
6:13
This is a deep and practical episode about what's actually changing, what still matters, and where the real leverage is right now. There's also a link to that video in the show notes.
6:23
Now let's look at some interesting stats around live commerce. The numbers are staggering when you look at the growth trajectory.
6:29
Excluding China, the global GMV of live commerce is projected to hit about two trillion dollars by 2030, up from just around a hundred fifty billion in 2024.
6:38
Live commerce is expected to grow from 1% of total e-commerce GMV to about 14% by 2030. That's a massive shift in how consumers will be shopping over the next few years.
6:49
There's a full graphic showing this growth in the written version of today's podcast. I've put a link to that in our show notes. Now let's talk about a valuable resource for analyzing your competitors.
6:59
Jill Lambiase has created a valuable SOP that shows e-commerce sellers how to turn a slow guesswork-heavy social media competitor analysis into a fast AI-powered growth playbook that can be run in under an hour instead of an entire day.
7:13
It helps you uncover not just the obvious rivals, but the hidden brands your customers already follow and buy from, and then turn those insights into a sharper content and ad strategy. Here's what this SOP actually does.
7:27
It helps you move from scattered manual research like googling, scrolling feeds, and asking around to a structured, repeatable AI workflow for competitor discovery and review.
7:36
It uses AI to generate a categorized list of direct, indirect, and attention share competitors your audience engages with, including brands you've likely never heard of.
7:45
It guides you through pulling out to what's working for those brands, such as content types, hooks, posting cadence, and platforms so you can benchmark your own social strategy and spot gaps.
7:55
Why should you care as an e-commerce seller? Social competitor activity directly shapes what your shoppers see, expect, and buy often in real time, so ignoring it means flying blind while others set the standard.
8:08
Systematic competitor analysis reveals which platforms, angles, and offers actually drive engagement and sales in your niche instead of relying on gut feel.
8:18
For e-commerce brands, using these insights in your content and ad strategy is linked with higher engagement and more effective campaigns 'cause you're aligning with proven audience preferences.
8:27
You get step-by-step prompts and structure instead of vague theory, so you can literally plug in your niche and start seeing useful competitor intel today. You can download the full SOP using the link in the show notes.
8:40
Now for today's BDSN software tool of the day.
8:43
Algofuse is an AI-driven experimentation and personalization platform for e-commerce brands that automatically creates, launches, and optimizes on-site AB tests to grow conversion and revenue.
8:54
It helps teams quickly test product pages, pricing, messaging, and UX flows without heavy dev work and uses machine learning to identify winning variants and continuously improve performance.
9:05
There's a link to check out Algofuse in the show notes. Continuing the artificial intelligence theme, let's talk about how AI agents could handle 25% of e-commerce by 2030.
9:15
Remember when ride-sharing and Airbnb felt sketchy? Bain predicts that AI agents buying products for us will follow the same adoption curve.
9:24
That means it's gonna go from "no way" to "of course" much faster than you expect. Let's look at the numbers. We're looking at a three to five hundred billion dollar market by 2030 in the US alone.
9:35
Up to 25% of total e-commerce will be influenced or completed by AI agents. Already, 30 to 45% of consumers are using generative AI for product research.
9:46
And according to Salesforce data, three billion dollars in Black Friday sales were already influenced by AI agents. So what does agentic commerce actually mean?
9:55
It's purchases initiated, influenced, or completed by AI agents, not just AI-assisted search. That's AI fully handling transactions from decision to checkout, not just answering questions. Here's the adoption timeline.
10:08
Early movers, which is happening now, are using it for commodity purchases with clear specs like a cheap four-pack of Energizer double A batteries delivered tomorrow.
10:17
This includes price, availability, and convenience optimization. The impact zone here is that multi-brand retailers face disruption first.
10:26
Later adopters will use it for considered purchases requiring trust, like apparel, home goods, and travel. Higher emotional investment means slower AI adoption. What's the seller imperative here?
10:38
Leading retailers are determining their agentic strategy now. The winners will own as much data as possible, control fulfillment infrastructure, and maintain checkout relationships.
10:48
Most consumers aren't comfortable with full AI purchasing yet, but the infrastructure's being built today.
10:54
By 2030, AI will touch most online shopping, so retailers and brands who wait to respond will be playing catch-up in a fundamentally restructured marketplace.
11:03
Finally, before we wrap up, here are a few more hot picks for you. First, there's an article about, uh, a project that's scraping Amazon and creating unauthorized listings for brands.
11:12
Second, sellers are preparing for agent-driven shopping at scale. Third, there's an article covering the winners and losers in the tariff wars.
11:19
And finally, Amazon third-party sellers have hit two point five trillion dollars in sales. You can find links to all these articles in our written newsletter at billiondollarsellers.com.
11:29
And here's your parting shot for today from Doug McMillon, Walmart's CEO, "We will compete with technology but win with people. We'll be people-led and tech-empowered."
11:39
I'll be broadcasting on Monday from the Driven Quarry Mastermind, so be sure to tune in then. Oh, and remember that question I asked you at the beginning?
11:47
Well, the answer is that each customer has lost $1,257 in annual purchasing power due to tariff pass-throughs. That's all for today, folks. Have a great weekend.
11:58
This is Kevin Keane signing off from the Billion Dollar Sellers Podcast.
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