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Amazon allegedly tricks 35 million people in the U.S. to trick them to buy Amazon Prime memberships, and now they agree to pay back 2.5 billion. How does this affect you as an Amazon seller?
Global container trade is slowing down due to geopolitics and tariffs. How does this affect you as an e-commerce brand owner? And Lululemon hit by, Lululemon loses $240 million of profits due to the de minimis elimination and what you can learn about it.
Also, I didn't think this was possible, but now you can expand to Amazon Japan using AI, even if you don't speak Japanese, check out my YouTube training recorded live yesterday.
And a Stanford professor offers a practical guide to 10X your AI productivity. For me, the number one tip is chain of thought reasoning forces AI to share its thought process to check first to get better results. This has been big for me. I'm curious what works for you.
This is the September 26 edition of the 80/20 of e-commerce.
The U.S. government alleges that Amazon has used, I don't want to say black hat, but trickery. Such as pop-ups during checkout that repeatedly offered customers sign up for Prime, signing up for Amazon Prime, collecting their credit card information without disclosing the terms or making it clear how to cancel.
Nurphoto via Getty
For example, when people signed up for a 1 month free trial for Prime, they were not told that they would automatically be billed at the end of the month. As a result, 35,000,000 people estimated by the BBC were affected by these practices between 2019 and 2025, they could be eligible for refunds worth up to 51 dollars.
The takeaway is, will there be 35,000,000 less U.S. Amazon Prime shoppers, as this BBC article alleges? Pay attention to your sales, guys, this could have a negative impact.
According to Freight Waves, these trade route disruptions are affecting global supply chain efficiency. In addition, reshoring and nearshoring trends, in other words, sourcing away from remote Far East countries like China and India and nearshoring to the U.S. or Mexico, impacting the international trade shipping volumes.
Source: Freightwaves - Jim Allen
As a result, the takeaway for Amazon sellers is the slowing container growth could lead to higher shipping costs and longer transit times. Sellers pay attention to your inventory. And explore regional sourcing options to mitigate risks. If you'd like to source from Mexico, please fill out my sourcing request form below.
About two-thirds of Lululemon's U.S. e-commerce orders are fulfilled through Canada. And previously, these orders would have been below $800 on average and qualify for the de minimis to get imports to the U.S. duty-free.
Now, U.S.-bound shipments from Lululemon's Canadian warehouses will be subject to import duties. And this will cost Lululemon $240 million gross profit.
The takeaway is the elimination of de minimis exemptions will negatively impact sellers shipping low-value goods directly from overseas. Definitely look at your alternatives and consider them. Consider repositioning to U.S. warehouses.
Yesterday I shared live training on how to expand to Amazon Japan using AI… even if you don't speak Japanese.
Amazon Japan is the second largest Amazon marketplace in the world. Zero tariffs, lower competition than EU and U.S.
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/live/B5n7GBowArc
Finally, I want to share an AI tip. Stanford's Practical Guide to 10X Your AI and Productivity by Jeremy Utley. He is Stanford's AI and Creativity Expert. He shared five practical ways to get better results using AI.
For me, tip number one, chain of thought reasoning forces AI to share its thought process before it does its work. So you can check and make sure it produces better and the correct results.
If you do check out this short video, let me know which one was the biggest takeaway for you.
ICYMI (In Case You Missed It)
Best,
Gary