For this week's edition, the theme is control. The U.S. government is processing tariff refunds and you may be owed money. Amazon is tightening its grip on your listings and pushing deeper into freight. Cargo is rushing in early ahead of tariffs, and AI is moving from helping people shop to actually checking out. Let's get into it.
Time is ticking on your tariff refund
Time is ticking on your tariff refund.
If you imported anything from China, India, Europe, or other countries into the U.S. between February 2025 and February 2026, you may be eligible for a tariff refund.
If you have already claimed it, great. You can skip this section.
If you have not, please read carefully, because you may be leaving real money on the table if you imported even 1 container during the past year.
Some of you may remember that I wrote about the Trump emergency tariffs a few months ago. The U.S. government has already started processing tariff refund claims, but you do have to follow their instructions to get this done.
That includes:
registering on the ACE website
pulling the right ACE reports
submitting the required information through the correct process
The main requirements are:
you imported shipments into the U.S. between February 2025 and February 2026
you were the Importer of Record
you did not use DDP where someone else was the Importer of Record
you can access the ACE reports needed to support the claim
If you do qualify and would like help getting a free assessment of how much money you could potentially get back, please fill out the form below.
We are partnering with Unicargo to offer this free assessment to sellers who may qualify.
The assessment can help you gauge how much money you could potentially get back. If you imported a couple of containers, you may qualify for a five-figure refund, but your mileage may vary.
No refund is guaranteed. CBP decides eligibility, refund amount, and timing. This is not legal, customs, or tax advice.
The deadline depends on your entries and status, but the window is moving. I would not sit on this.
If you sell on Amazon, this one lands right in your listings. Starting July 27, 2026, Amazon will require product titles in most categories to be 75 characters or less, according to EcommerceBytes, citing the Seller Central announcement.
Here's the part that should get your attention. Amazon says titles that go over the limit may be updated to its own AI-recommended version over time. So if you don't fix your titles, Amazon may rewrite them for you.
You can read Amazon's full title requirements on its Seller Central help page.
TAKEAWAY: Pull a report of your titles now and trim anything over 75 characters before July 27. Don't let Amazon's AI decide what your listing says. You know your keywords and your buyer better than a model does.
Amazon is opening up its less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping to any business, not just sellers moving inventory into Amazon. According to FreightWaves, you can now use Amazon's freight network to ship to third-party warehouses, distribution centers, and retail stores.
The translation is simple. Amazon wants to be your freight company, not just your marketplace. This pushes Amazon further into logistics and puts it in more direct competition with the carriers you already use.
My take: more shipping options can be good for your rates. Just be careful about how much of your supply chain runs through one company that is also your sales channel.
TAKEAWAY: It's worth getting a quote to compare Amazon LTL against your current carriers. But keep a backup. The more of your business that depends on Amazon, the less leverage you have when they change the rules.
If your inventory comes by sea, your planning math just changed. The National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates expect June import volumes to be up 14.3% compared to last year, as importers pull orders forward to get ahead of tariffs and fuel pressure, per Supply Chain Dive.
Here's the real problem for cash flow. C.H. Robinson says booking cycles have stretched from 2 weeks to 5 weeks. That means you have to commit to inventory, and tie up cash, much earlier than you used to.
This isn't slowing down. The Port of Los Angeles is forecast to handle more than 900,000 container units in both June and July.
TAKEAWAY: Build the longer booking window into your reorder dates and your cash flow plan now. If you wait until you're low on stock to book, you may be 5 weeks behind before your container even leaves.
AI shopping is moving from "help me find a product" to "go buy it for me." Visa and OpenAI are building payment rails so AI agents can actually make purchases on your behalf, according to PYMNTS.
The system is built with guardrails: spending limits, merchant restrictions, approval rules, tokenized card credentials, and fraud monitoring. In plain English, you could tell an AI assistant to buy something, set a budget, and let it check out.
This is the part of AI commerce most sellers aren't watching. Everyone is focused on AI for product research. The bigger shift is AI doing the actual buying.
TAKEAWAY: Start thinking about whether an AI agent could find and buy YOUR product. Clean data, clear titles, accurate pricing, and structured product info will matter even more when the "shopper" is a machine.
Everyone tells you TikTok Shop is the place where anyone can go viral and win. The data says otherwise. Marketplace Pulse looked at nearly 100,000 U.S. TikTok Shop sellers and found the top 1% drive 60% of tracked sales (GMV). The top 0.1% account for more than a quarter on their own.
That's a very top-heavy platform. A few big players take most of the money, and a huge number of sellers fight over what's left.
I'm not saying skip TikTok Shop. I'm saying go in with your eyes open. Viral content is not a business plan.
TAKEAWAY: If you sell on TikTok Shop, treat it like a real channel with real costs, not a lottery ticket. Know your numbers before you pour time and ad spend into it.
Quick hit: Walmart Deals runs June 22-28
Walmart is running its big deals event from June 22 to 28, ahead of Prime Day. Walmart+ members get first access to curated hot deal drops in the first 24 hours, per Walmart Corporate. If you sell on Walmart, plan your deal windows around this, not just Amazon's dates.
In case you missed it:
(From the past 2 weeks — paste the full URLs from the 6/9 and 6/16 issues)
Talk soon,
Gary
P.S. If you imported into the U.S. between February 2025 and February 2026 and paid these tariffs, don't sit on it. Get your free assessment here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfeHCfkHpfzsfJqYVeqlPwfuL9S14NBYnODiJgvvC-uk8IyYg/viewform. No refund is guaranteed, but you won't know what you're owed until you check.