How 2025 Actually Played Out for Amazon Sellers — and What You Should Do Next

2025 didn’t break ecommerce. But it exposed the limits of old playbooks and highlighted the sellers who moved with clarity instead of confusion.

Tariffs shook margins. Supply chains reacted late. Amazon ads got smarter and more personalized. AI started steering demand before shoppers ever hit the search box. And TikTok continued pulling buyers upstream, creating branded intent that later shows up as search demand on Amazon.

In a year-end conversation with Liran Hirschkorn (Co-founder & CEO of Incrementum Digital), we unpacked the real moves that separated resilient sellers from reactive ones — and the strategies that matter going into 2026.

👉 Watch the full year-in-review session here.

This isn’t conjecture. These are the practical trends shaping operations, discovery, and growth right now.

Tariffs weren’t just higher costs. They froze decision cycles.

Tariffs weren’t just higher costs. They froze decision cycles.

Most brands anticipated tariffs. What they didn’t anticipate was the volatility:

• Policies announced and reversed

• Unexpected pauses and renewals

• New tariffs showing up in countries you thought were safe

That kind of churn doesn’t just hit margins. It interferes with inventory timing, cash flow, and planning accuracy.

Serious sellers survived this year not by guessing policy, but by tracking enforceable changes daily and building flexibility into sourcing, inventory, and cash planning.

Quick wins here:

• Use official tariff sources instead of social rumors

• Confirm HS codes. Misclassifications can cost far more than the tariff itself

• Consider tactical fulfillment options, such as Hong Kong DTC shipping on units, while policy uncertainty persists

The sellers who protected margin before it hit them are in a better position to scale in 2026.

The Playing Field Shift That Helped US Sellers

Two quiet but meaningful shifts helped level competition:

• De minimis tightening. The under-$800 exemption got stricter, trimming unfair cross-border cost advantages

• More transparency and compliance pressure on foreign sellers, especially around taxes and reporting

When pricing is less distorted, quality and brand strength matter more than ever. Serious sellers win that game.

AI Changed Discovery — And Where Growth Starts

AI didn’t just get fancy. It changed where buyers start shopping decisions.

Rather than beginning with the Amazon search box, buyers increasingly start with AI recommendations driven by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and similar tools. Liran shared a telling example. Searching for kosher matcha on Amazon requires clicking through listings one by one. Asking ChatGPT delivers curated brands in seconds.

That’s a demand shift.

And when AI drives the start of discovery, conversion rates can be unusually high because intent comes with trust baked in. One brand reported a 12% conversion rate on AI referral traffic, well above typical ecommerce averages. That’s not a fringe channel. It’s real customer intent.

Amazon Ads Got Personal — And That Changes Scale

2025 wasn’t about ads going away. It was about smarter, more personalized ads at a higher CPC, and that shift was intentional.

Amazon opened access to tools like Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), giving sellers better audience targeting and clearer path-to-purchase data. That marks a shift from generic allocation to behavioral precision.

Competition for those impressions is rising, and better conversion is now the only way to justify spend.

At Goflow, we see this as a natural evolution. Serious sellers should optimize not just keywords and bids, but creative, audience definition, and cross-channel demand signals.

Creative Is Becoming a Commodity Edge

2025 made one thing clear. Content stopped being a checklist item and became a strategic asset.

Creators are no longer optional. Brands are paying creators upfront, licensing content, and using it in campaigns that span platforms from TikTok to Amazon.

Video, segmented messaging, and multi-angle storytelling are no longer trends. They are table stakes.

Amazon vs TikTok: Two Funnels, Both Real

Liran’s framing was clear.

Amazon is bottom-funnel. Shoppers know what they want and are ready to transact.
TikTok is full-funnel. Discovery, awareness, influence, and purchase can all happen in one session.

That doesn’t make one better than the other. It makes them complementary.

More sellers now open demand upstream through TikTok and DTC, then capture intent downstream through Amazon and other marketplaces. When upstream demand creates branded searches on Amazon, launching and scaling there becomes easier and cheaper.

Two Growth Strategies You Can Use Today

Strategy A: Amazon-First

If your brand is early-stage or under $1M per year, your biggest lever is execution: inventory certainty, clean metrics, efficient ads, and product-led conversions.

Focus wins before scale wins.

Strategy B: Demand-First

Launch DTC and upstream channels like TikTok, creators, and live shopping first to generate branded demand and search growth. Then launch on Amazon with momentum already in market, making every CPC dollar more efficient.

Both paths work. Platform choice should match your product, audience, and margin reality.

The 2026 Outlook: Yes, We’re Bullish

When Yoni asked Liran whether he was bullish on ecommerce over the next 36 months, the answer was yes, with a caveat.

Growth will accrue to sellers who harness AI to reduce cost, build demand upstream, lean into creative assets, and use data to guide decisions.

That’s not optimism. That’s fundamentals.

What This Means for Your Operation

If 2025 showed us anything, it’s that visibility and control beat reactionary moves every time.

Just like our other posts, this comes back to one truth we talk about all the time at Goflow:

You can’t scale with siloed systems. You scale by unifying data, automating workflows, and controlling execution across every channel and touchpoint.

Want a deeper look at what multichannel control actually drives?

Check out:
👉 Why Every Serious Ecommerce Brand Needs a Multichannel Operating System to Scale
👉 How to Scale Beyond Amazon Without Losing Control of Your Operations

Those posts break down the framework you need to move past guesswork and into repeatable, measurable growth.

The Bottom Line

2025 didn’t break ecommerce.
It redefined where growth actually starts and what it takes to capture it.

Sellers who adapt with data, execution, and cross-channel demand won’t just weather volatility. They’ll scale through it.

Ready to unify your channels, automate workflows, and control your growth in 2026?
👉 Start with Goflow Core (it’s free).