Overview

On December 14, 2022 Helium 10 aired a Buzz episode that called attention to three pressing developments for Amazon sellers: lingering delays in the FBA inbound workflow, the debut of Amazon Inspire as a creator‑driven marketplace, and a set of refinements to Sponsored Display targeting and reporting. Each of these shifts can reshape how sellers manage stock levels, tap into short‑form video traffic, and allocate advertising dollars, making immediate attention essential for protecting margins and capturing new growth avenues.

Key Points

• FBA inbound slowdown — Sellers reported inbound processing times stretching up to 48 hours for a 1,000‑unit pallet that would normally clear in 24 hours, forcing many to reconsider safety‑stock calculations.
• Misplacement incidents — A handful of fulfillment centers logged occasional SKU misplacements, prompting vendors to double‑check inventory reconciliation reports before authorizing shipments.
• Amazon Inspire launch — The platform now lets creators upload 15‑ to 60‑second videos that can be linked directly to product detail pages, opening a revenue‑share model where a beauty brand might pay a makeup artist a fixed percentage of sales generated from a tutorial clip.
• Creator‑seller partnership model — Sellers can negotiate terms such as a 5 % revenue share for each sale attributed to a creator’s video, enabling performance‑based collaborations without upfront influencer fees.
• Sponsored Display segment expansion — New audience buckets like “Viewers of similar products” and “Cart abandoners” replace the previous broad categories, allowing advertisers to see segment‑level ACOS, impressions, and click‑through rates in a dedicated dashboard.
• Bid‑optimization tools — The updated dashboard lets a seller of wireless earbuds raise bids for the “Cart abandoners” segment after discovering it delivers a 20 % lower ACOS than the generic audience, while simultaneously lowering bids for under‑performing groups.
• Policy refresh on listings — Recent tweaks to product detail page standards now require clearer brand‑owner verification, meaning listings that previously qualified for FBA or Sponsored Display may need additional documentation to remain eligible.