The Smartest Amazon Seller

Daniela from Mindful Goods joins the podcast to explore how New York State’s new AI image regulations are impacting Amazon sellers and forcing brands to adopt greater creative transparency. As consumer sensitivity to "AI slop" grows, brands are encountering false negatives where overly polished human photography is mistaken for AI, making human split-testing and data-driven creative execution essential. While n...

TikTok Shop does far more than generate in-app sales; it can also drive millions of impressions that boost revenue across Amazon, D2C, and physical retail. This social exposure creates real pricing power. SmartScout’s alum Michael White leveraged TikTok traction to sell his product for $65, while competitors remained stuck at $45. The data proves this spillover effect. Every million TikTok views can generate $...

SmartScout is expanding beyond Amazon with new TikTok Shop data after six months of research and development. The new tools track TikTok Shop trends, top products, estimated sales, market share, categories, sellers, and product variants. Scott explains why TikTok Shop reminds him of Amazon 10 years ago and why social commerce is creating new opportunities for brands. The data also reveals major differences between A...

Scott sits with Christian, founder of Autopilot, about his extensive study on Amazon's AI shopping assistant (Alexa / Rufus) and how generative recommendations are fundamentally changing how products get discovered on and off Amazon. Christian explains that AI-driven shopping isn't just a replica of traditional search results, it also represents a distinct "third shelf" alongside organic search and paid advertising. ...

Scott talks with Michael from Social Motion and Video Science about why sellers need to manage video the same way they manage keywords, bids, and listings: with testing, data, and a clear performance goal. Michael explains that the best Amazon videos start with search intent. A shopper looking for an “air purifier” may care about pets, allergies, bedrooms, or odor, and each use case can need a different h...

Scott is with Matt Snyder, founder of Brands Excel, to discuss one of the most misunderstood transitions on Amazon: moving between Vendor Central (1P) and Seller Central (3P). After years of third-party sellers gaining share, Amazon’s first-party retail business appears to be growing again. Matt explains how tariffs, inventory challenges, margin pressure, and operational complexity have made life harder for man...

Lauren Livak Gilbert, lead of the Digital Shelf Institute, joins the podcast to explore how agentic commerce and AI tools like Amazon’s Rufus are transforming product discovery. As the industry shifts from traditional SEO keyword stuffing to natural language and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), sellers must optimize their Product Detail Pages by directly answering consumer Q&As to feed context-driven AI re...

Scott is with Brett Bohannon to talk about the fast-moving shift from basic AI chat tools to agent-driven Amazon workflows. They discuss Claude, OpenClaw, MCP servers, APIs, and how sellers can connect private catalog data, public marketplace data, and advertising insights into one AI-powered operating system. Brett shares how he uses AI agents to reduce repetitive Amazon tasks, audit catalogs, connect tools like Kee...

Cajua and Josh have been selling on Amazon since 2017. They started with private label and also tried each of the popular models, including Retail Arbitrage, Online Arbitrage, and Wholesale Distribution. Now they focus on being a brand-direct growth partner (aka an Accelerator) for small brands. They've generated millions in revenue for their brand partners, host the Ecom Unlimited Podcast, and help run The Wholesale...

In this episode, we have Mario Simonyan of ESQ Go, an attorney who brings a rare operator-first perspective to the table. Having built and sold his own brands, Mario understands the high stakes of the Amazon ecosystem in a way most lawyers don't. He frames arbitration as the "car crash" of the business world. It is a situation most sellers hope to avoid but must understand before a crisis hits. His dual background as...

Scott talks with Maciej Stanski, US CEO of Base.com and a former Amazon logistics operator, about what growth looks like now that Amazon is no longer the only serious game in town. Maciej's Amazon middle-mile logistics background gives the episode an operational focus. He explains how inventory movement, consolidation, and shipping speed built Amazon’s FBA advantage, while Scott ties that to today’s reali...

Scott shares a few 2026 updates shaping the Amazon landscape... plus a key reminder that opportunity is still real, but it’s shifting. He challenges the “Amazon is dead for new sellers” narrative. Michael White (a longtime SmartScout teammate) left to launch his own Amazon brand and has already crossed $1M in revenue after launching in August. This was driven by patient sourcing and a clear trend th...

Amazon sellers are entering a new era of product discovery, and AI visibility is becoming part of the playbook. In this episode, Scott sits down with Yona, founder of Amazon Growth Lab, to break down how brands can improve visibility across both Amazon’s ecosystem (Rufus, Cosmo, organic search) and external LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Yona explains why traditional keyword stuffing is fading, how Amazon is evolving tow...

AI is changing how shoppers discover products, and Amazon sellers need to pay attention now.

In this episode, Scott breaks down the rise of AI-driven product discovery through tools like Amazon Rufus and ChatGPT, and explains why visibility in AI answers is becoming a new layer of competition for sellers.

He unpacks Amazon’s Cosmo framework, including the key product-understanding que...

Amazon’s new AI shopping agent could reshape how people discover and buy products online. Scott breaks down Amazon’s “Buy for Me” initiative, which is an AI-driven shopping flow that can surface off-site products and redirect shoppers to external stores. He unpacks what it could mean for conversion, attribution, and Shopify seller economics. Learn how it works in practice, and why it matters ...

Scott returns from a month of trade shows to break down what he’s seeing on the front lines of e-commerce, and why we’re entering a new era of “AI visibility” for Amazon sellers. He shares how the largest brand client his team has ever signed actually found them through ChatGPT, and what that means for agencies, software tools, and brands trying to stand out online. Scott walks through the ma...

Discover why simplicity might be the ultimate Amazon strategy. This is straight from an industry veteran who’s seen it all. In this episode, Scott sits down with Scotty O. of Quickfire and Always Off Brand podcast to unpack decades of experience navigating Amazon’s third-party marketplace. From working with iconic brands like Columbia Sportswear and North Face to building agencies and embracing straightf...

Nick from Aiometrix explains how agentic AI can automate busywork and boost results for Amazon brands.

He began in a California garage with retail arbitrage, then expanded into wholesale and manufacturing during the COVID surge. Today, his team builds AI agents that connect to WMS and ad APIs to make real-time decisions on bids, budgets, and inventory so operators can focus on strategy.

Sco...

Scott and Noah unpacks agency growth that actually moves the needle for Amazon sellers.

They tackle conference takeaways, real playbooks for managing hundreds of brands, and how “unreasonable hospitality” builds sticky B2B relationships. You will hear how top teams stay resilient, communicate proactively, and keep speed and flexibility at the center of every client touchpoint.

Also learn how AI is reshaping product disc...