Amazon Seller Updates: Inspire Replaced, Order Handling Changes & Temu’s Trust Struggles

Top Amazon Seller News Stories This Week 

Amazon continues to upgrade its seller tools and marketplace offerings with several key updates this week. 

• Cheap Deals or Consumer Confidence: A new survey reveals that while shoppers can save on Temu, trust remains a major factor—87% of respondents trust Amazon, compared to only 5% for Temu. Potential tariff increases on Chinese imports could also impact Temu’s pricing advantage.
• Amazon Replaces Inspire with Rufus: Amazon is shutting down its TikTok-style Inspire feed and replacing it with Rufus, the AI-powered shopping chatbot designed to enhance product discovery and recommendations.
• Order Handling Capacity Changes: Amazon will automatically set a minimum threshold for sellers in the Order Handling Capacity feature, based on the past 30 days of order volume. This will be recalculated weekly to ensure sellers can meet demand, with the option to set a higher limit manually.
  

Stay tuned as we dive deeper into these Amazon seller updates and their impact on ecommerce businesses.

Amazon Shuts Down Inspire, Shifts Focus to AI with Rufus

Amazon is making a major pivot in its approach to product discovery. After less than two years, the company has quietly shut down its TikTok-inspired social shopping feed, Inspire.

In its place, Amazon is doubling down on AI with Rufus, a generative AI-powered shopping assistant designed to help customers find products more intuitively. This shift signals Amazon’s strategic move away from social commerce and toward AI-driven personalization.

Why Did Amazon Shut Down Inspire?

Amazon Inspire was launched as a way to tap into the success of TikTok’s discovery-based shopping model. It featured an endless scroll of shoppable videos and images from influencers and customers, designed to drive impulse purchases. However, the feature failed to gain traction for several reasons.

• Amazon’s transactional DNA: Unlike TikTok, where users browse casually and discover products organically, Amazon shoppers typically visit the platform with a purchase in mind.
• Low creator engagement: Influencers and brands had little incentive to produce content exclusively for Inspire when platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube offered better reach and monetization options.
• Lack of viral appeal: Inspire’s algorithm wasn’t as effective at surfacing engaging content, meaning fewer users engaged with the feed compared to other social media platforms. It has had a much smaller user base limiting virality, even on share-worthy posts.

Rather than forcing a model that wasn’t working, Amazon is now shifting to a strategy that better aligns with its strength: AI-driven shopping assistance.

For sellers, this continues to be an important shift. Traditional Amazon SEO tactics—such as optimizing for keyword rankings—may take a backseat to AI-driven personalization. Brands will need to focus more on:

• Building strong product reputations through high-quality reviews and customer satisfaction.
• Ensuring brand visibility by engaging on Amazon’s ad ecosystem to remain competitive in AI-generated recommendations.
• Providing rich product content to help AI tools understand and surface their listings effectively.

Amazon’s decision to abandon Inspire and focus on AI-driven personalization reflects a bigger industry trend: social commerce remains dominated by platforms like TikTok, while AI is increasingly shaping how consumers find and purchase products. Sellers who adapt to this new paradigm will be best positioned to thrive in Amazon’s growing marketplace.

Amazon vs Temu: Shoppers Love the Savings but Question the Trust

As budget-conscious shoppers continue to seek the best deals, a new survey by Omnisend sheds light on the growing competition between Amazon and Temu. While Temu offers steep discounts—averaging 40% cheaper than Amazon—trust remains a major factor, with 87% of consumers expressing confidence in Amazon compared to only 5% for Temu.

With potential US tariffs looming over Chinese imports, the price war between these two ecommerce giants could take a dramatic turn. Here’s what you need to know.

Key Findings from the Survey

• Price Advantage: Temu undercuts Amazon by an average of $13.37 per product, offering bigger and more frequent discounts—up to 98% compared to Amazon’s 67%.
• Product Overlap: 77% of Amazon-listed products have a close match on Temu, with every 10th product being identical.
• Consumer Trust: While Temu entices shoppers with deep discounts, only 5% of surveyed consumers trust the platform compared to 87% for Amazon.
• Review Discrepancies: Amazon products average 50,000 reviews per listing, while Temu listings average just 1,500. Concerns over review manipulation on Temu, including disappearing reviews and product relistings, raise red flags.‍
• Category Strengths: Temu excels in fashion and beauty (94% product match with Amazon) but lags in food and beverage. Amazon holds an edge in automotive, where it offers products 12% cheaper than Temu. Beyond this, shipping speed also plays a role. Temu’s shipping times are significantly longer than Amazon’s, adding another trade-off for shoppers who prioritize fast delivery.

The Tariff Factor: Could Prices Shift?

A potential wildcard in this battle is the impact of new US tariffs on Chinese imports. While 42% of survey respondents oppose tariffs, 56% worry that increased import costs will drive up prices.

If tariffs are implemented, Temu’s pricing advantage may shrink, forcing budget-conscious shoppers to reconsider their options. In addition, 29% of respondents said they would immediately reduce or stop shopping on marketplaces like Temu if prices rose significantly.

Final Thoughts

Temu may continue to lure shoppers with rock-bottom prices, but Amazon’s trust advantage and logistical superiority remain strong differentiators. The introduction of tariffs could further tilt the balance in Amazon’s favor, but the competition is far from over. It would be best for sellers to stay agile, monitor pricing trends, and prioritize trust-building strategies to navigate these trends effectively.

Amazon’s New Order Handling Threshold: A Win for Efficiency or a Seller Setback?

Amazon’s latest policy update, effective February 24, 2025, introduces automatic minimum thresholds for order handling capacity. While Amazon frames this as a move to improve delivery accuracy, many sellers are sounding the alarm over potential disruptions to their business operations.

What’s Changing?

Amazon will now automatically set a minimum order handling capacity threshold for FBM sellers based on their average daily orders over the past 30 days. This change does not affect the maximum capacity threshold.

Key details include:

• The minimum threshold will be recalculated weekly based on average daily orders over the past 30 days.
• If a seller sets their order handling capacity below this threshold, Amazon will adjust the threshold closer to what they have recently been able to handle.
• Sellers can still set a higher limit at any time, ensuring flexibility for scaling up.
• The threshold only applies to Standard and Free Economy shipping options—not Premium Shipping or Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) orders.
• Once the limit is reached, customers will see an extended delivery promise, adding an extra day to handling time.

Greater Efficiency, Fewer Late Shipments

Amazon advises that the update will:

• Prevent sellers from artificially setting their daily order volume too low, ensuring more accurate delivery date promises.
• Reduce the risk of late shipments, which can negatively impact seller performance metrics.
• Help optimize the shopping experience by keeping fulfillment speeds aligned with real capacity.

An Amazon representative clarified,“There are no changes to the maximum number of orders sellers can handle. This update simply prevents sellers from setting unrealistically low limits that could mislead customers.”

Sellers Push Back: “This is Sales Suppression”

Despite Amazon’s assurances, many sellers are frustrated and view this as another move to exert control over independent businesses. Key concerns include:

• Limited flexibility for seasonal fluctuations: Many sellers rely on high sales spikes during holidays and fear that Amazon’s automated threshold adjustments will reduce their ability to scale up during peak periods.
• Risk of job cuts: Some sellers argue that this update will reduce the need for seasonal workers, potentially hurting small businesses that expand their workforce during busy times.
• Lack of clarity: Several sellers have criticized Amazon’s vague announcement and questioned how the threshold will be calculated.

One seller vented: “Why would this metric not be based on orders we’ve failed to fulfill in a timely manner, rather than the number we have fulfilled? Amazon is just making it harder for us to run our businesses.”

Another speculated that this could lead to future fees, suggesting that later in the year, Amazon may introduce a ‘low threshold order handling capacity’ fee for sellers falling below their imposed limits.

A Pattern of Fulfillment Control?

This isn’t the first time Amazon has tightened its grip on seller-fulfilled orders. In a previous update, Amazon implemented Automated Handling Time (AHT) for SKUs shipped from non-US warehouses. Sellers who set slower handling times than their actual processing speed had their handling time automatically adjusted—with no option to opt out.

These policies, combined with Amazon’s increasing control over shipping, pricing, and fulfillment policies, have sparked concerns over anti-competitive practices and possible legal scrutiny in states like California, where labor and business regulation is stricter.

Other Amazon Updates This Week

1. More Flexibility for Amazon Vine Enrollments

Sellers using Amazon Vine can now upgrade to a higher enrollment tier within the first 30 days, allowing them to enroll more units of an ASIN for enhanced visibility through trusted reviews.

2. New Marketplace Product Guidance for Global Expansion

US sellers can now access recommendations for expanding into Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, in addition to existing insights for the UK, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, and Spain.

3. AI-Powered Restock Recommendations for FBM Listing

A new Restock Recommendation tool in Seller Central provides personalized inventory suggestions, including demand forecasting, estimated days of supply, and recommended restock quantities.

4. New Term Financing for UK Sellers

Eligible UK sellers can now access up to £5 million in funding through TradeBridge, with flexible repayment terms up to 18 months and a fast approval process.

5. Amazon Expands Beauty & Personal Care in Europe

Amazon is enhancing its beauty and personal care offerings across European marketplaces and has opened its first physical beauty store, Amazon Parafarmacia & Beauty, in Milan, Italy.