Before you raise your Black Friday ad budget - 80/20 of Ecom 10/2/2026

What is your strategy for Black Friday Cyber Monday?

Are you going to ramp up your ad spend?

Are you making the listings holiday themed?

Having the past performance is very critical. Whatever gets measured gets managed.

That historical data, plug it into your AI of choice.

For example, maybe your goal right now is to optimize for Black Friday Cyber Monday.

Right now we're in early October.

So you want to feed it your historical sales, so it can see every year what the bump is for Black Friday Cyber Monday.

Feed it your inventory stock levels, so it knows your inventory sitting in your FBA warehouse, your 3PL, your AWD, your factory, and how much is on the boat.

I would give it your strategy right now. You can even just brain dump it:

"Right now my sales is at X. I want to have a 50% bump for Black Friday Cyber Monday. This is what we did before historically. We adjusted our bids, we did these listings, the copywriting, like holidays, 'it makes a great gift,' etc."

All of that context, as much as possible.

Remember the GOLD prompt. Give it the goal, give it the details, and tell it what the output is.

For example:

"I want a McKinsey-level, in-depth strategic document that we can follow to a T. I want extreme detail when it comes to the listing adjustments and listing optimization, taking into account the historical sales, the peaks, the troughs."

Also the PPC data. If you have historical PPC data around these trends, years and years, that would be even better.

That way it has all that information to make a custom-tailored solution for your business.

Give it its limitations:

"I don't want to spend more than 20 grand this season. I only have 2,000 units in the FBA warehouse right now."

What do I need to do on the listing level, the marketing, the PPC side, the deal side, the supply chain side?

How much do I need to order more right now?

And even after that, there's Q1 next year. You don't want to be out of stock. You have to factor in Chinese New Year.

The AI is very good as a brainstorming partner.

Also ask it:

What am I overlooking?

What am I underestimating in this strategy?

What am I not seeing that could be a red flag? That could be a gotcha? Like this thing could totally tank.

And then also feed in the competitors.

One quick feedback from the call.

I saw one of our alumni was using Instant in ChatGPT. Instant is a very low model. It's what I call the stupid fast mode.

If I were you doing PPC optimization, the minimum I would use is GPT-6.1 Sol, or even Astra, to get higher intelligence.

So make sure you change that model and check your result. It may be different.

TAKEAWAY: I would really try to use AI as a brainstorming partner to give you the overall strategy. That's even more important than just the PPC. The PPC obviously is important, but the big picture.

In today's issue:

This is the hot new thing all the sellers are talking about right now.

Amazon opened Seller Central to Claude. It's called the Amazon Selling Partner plugin, and it runs on Amazon's own MCP connector.

An MCP connects your Seller Central account to Claude. So instead of guessing, your AI reads your actual listings, inventory and sales.

It's in beta for U.S. stores, through Amazon Quick and Claude. Amazon says setup takes about 60 seconds, and any action it takes needs your approval and gets logged.

If you have a developer, Amazon also published an SP-API MCP sample on GitHub. That one is an educational sample, not a finished product, so it needs proper security and testing before you use it for real.

Amazon also says primary account holders can get Amazon Quick Plus free for 12 months, plus two designated co-workers, if they sign up by December 31, 2026.

Here's the catch. It reads your Amazon seller data. Your full costs, like cost of goods, freight and duties, may still need your own inputs.

So connecting your data is step one. It doesn't make the AI right.

Are you using it yet? Hit reply and let me know what you're seeing. I'd love to learn from you.

TAKEAWAY: If you connect it, start with one question you can check, like your FBA stockout risk or a suppressed listing. Ask for the source numbers, and approve every change yourself.

Your data helps you plan Q4.

It doesn't bring you new shoppers.

That's where traffic from outside Amazon comes in.

I sat down with my friend Can Chan, founder of TopTier League. He's an 8-figure ecommerce seller based in China, and he advises 8- and 9-figure brands.

Funny enough, he opened by talking about the Amazon MCP too.

Can's big point: if you only rely on traffic inside Amazon, running PPC, everyone is almost at the same level. You need outside traffic. And the biggest source of outside traffic is video on TikTok and Instagram.

So we talked about how to make AI video for TikTok and Amazon. The goal is repeatable organic traffic from outside Amazon, without raising your Amazon PPC spend.

Watch our full conversation on YouTube

Here's his workflow:

TAKEAWAY: Pick one product and one concept that's already working. Make a few AI variations, image first, then video. Then check your sales data, not just your views.

Watch the full conversation with Can Chan

I'm hosting the 7 Figure Japan Mastermind, which is in less than 2 weeks. October 13–14, in Tokyo.

If you want to learn more, Can will be speaking at the 7 Figure Japan Mastermind.

He'll demo his process and guide you through a first attempt on your own product. Then you get build time to keep working on it.

You'll learn how to:

You stay in charge. You review every video before it goes anywhere.

The goal is a first video you've checked yourself, plus a plan for what to test next.

We have a great speaker lineup, and we also have a full day of masterminding hot seats.

We'll work on:

Obviously the online calls are great. But in person is a whole other level.

Oftentimes I find it's those serendipitous moments. Not even in the conference room, but breaking bread, having coffee, going for a walk.

You get these breakthroughs.

The pre-summit price ends tonight, Friday, October 2, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern (Saturday, 12:59 p.m. Japan time). After that, the price goes up.

Join the 7 Figure Japan Mastermind

My friend Can is also hosting the TopTier Summit – Peak Season Edition in Anaheim on October 8. It brings together social media creators, leading Amazon and TikTok Shop operators, emerging brands and AI innovators under one roof. Can tells me he's expecting more than 10,000 creators.

The timing is on purpose. Q4 is the most important season in ecommerce, and the summit is set up to help high-performing sellers and creators get ready for peak season. For brands and the people who serve them, it's a chance to build partnerships, grow faster and meet top affiliate creators in one place.

Photo from Can's earlier TopTier Discovery Commerce Summit & YFCon 2026 in Los Angeles.

Can shared code Gary for 15% off.

Get your TopTier Summit ticket

On September 27, the White House announced a new U.S.-China Board of Trade and a "30-for-30" framework.

Each side named about $30 billion of the other's goods for lower tariffs.

The U.S. list has 77 tariff lines. It's mostly consumer products, like small appliances, toys, holiday decorations and children's car seats.

If you sell in those categories, that's good news.

But read the fine print.

Some lines are narrow. For example, the toy line excludes connected electronics. So check the exact wording, not just the category.

The framework proposes the cuts, subject to each side's own legal process. These documents don't give new tariff rates or a start date.

So I would not reprice anything on a headline.

Why this matters: Tariffs are one of the biggest swing factors in your landed cost. If your products are on this list, your Q1 and Q2 reorders could get cheaper.

Could. Not yet.

TAKEAWAY: Pull the HTS codes for your top SKUs and check them against the U.S. list, including any exclusions. Then wait for actual rates and dates before you change your price or your reorder plan.

TikTok Shop's fulfillment policy says regular orders need to be scanned or marked in transit within 2 business days, and delivered within 6 business days, counted from Awaiting Shipment. Exceptions apply.

Black Friday volume is when those timelines get tested.

TAKEAWAY: Check your handling time and carrier cutoffs now, before you launch your BFCM promos.

Amazon's ad conference, unBoxed, ran this week in San Francisco. Two things stood out to me.

First, Review Requests.

Advertisers will be able to invite verified buyers to leave a review from busy pages like the Amazon homepage, with one tap.

It's for registered sellers and vendors with an advertising account in good standing and no active policy violations. It covers products with fewer than 1,000 ratings and reviews.

Amazon has announced it for the U.S. Watch your ad console for availability.

Second, Amazon Ads Agent.

That's the new name for Amazon's ad platform, now with AI agents built in.

Full-Funnel Campaigns are now available to all U.S. advertisers. You supply the budget, the products and the creative, and you approve the creative before launch. The AI plans, runs and optimizes the campaign.

My take: AI moving your ad money is a different level of trust than AI writing you a summary.

Start with one workflow, one metric, and one approval. Set a budget cap and decide who signs off before the agent spends a dollar.

TAKEAWAY: List the ASINs going into Q4 with thin review counts. Those are your first candidates when Review Requests reaches your account.

Talk soon,

Gary

P.S. The pre-summit price for the 7 Figure Japan Mastermind ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Join us in Tokyo, October 13–14.

I used Claude Opus 5.5, with a very simple prompt, to create this teaser video for it. Literally it just did this in a few minutes. Watch the teaser on YouTube Shorts

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