You no doubt understand the importance of SEO, paid search, content marketing, social, and a dozen other tactics designed to boost your eCommerce business. You've probably already invested time and budget in them as part of your digital strategy.
So why aren't you doing the same when it comes to Amazon?
Put simply — in 2026, Amazon shouldn't just be a concern for your eCommerce business. It should be the concern. If you sell a physical product online and you don't have an Amazon strategy in place, you're handing market share to a competitor who does.
It's that important. Here's why.
Amazon has long since stopped being "just" a retailer. It's a search engine, an advertising platform, a logistics network, and an AI-driven shopping assistant — all wrapped in the largest product catalog on the internet.
The headline numbers in 2026 are hard to ignore:
That's a lot of eyeballs — and a lot of intent. The shopper who lands on Amazon isn't browsing the way they used to browse Google. They're closer to buy-mode. And your business's success depends not just on getting in front of them, but on stopping a competitor from getting there first.
If you thought Amazon's influence had peaked, the AI layer changes things again.
Amazon's Rufus generative AI assistant, rolled out to all US shoppers in 2024 and expanded internationally through 2025, is now answering questions like "what's the best running shoe for flat feet" directly inside the Amazon app — pulling from listings, reviews, and Q&A to surface a shortlist before the shopper even scrolls.
That means the moments where you used to compete on price or position are increasingly being decided before the shopper sees a results page. Listings that are clearly written, well-reviewed, and accurately attributed get pulled into Rufus's answers. The ones that aren't get skipped.
It's the same shift now playing out in Google search, where AI overviews are reading your website before your customers get there. On Amazon, the AI is reading your product listing.
Amazon's marketplace works on accumulated trust. Sellers with longer histories, more reviews, and stronger sales velocity outrank newcomers by default. That's great news for businesses that moved early. For everyone else, it's the reason "we'll get to Amazon next year" is the most expensive sentence in eCommerce.
If you're not building presence in Amazon's marketplace, you can bet a competitor is — and by the time you realize how much organic share they've taken, you're playing a much harder game to catch up.
It's tempting to look at Walmart Marketplace, TikTok Shop, or Shopify Markets and think there's a hedge against Amazon's dominance. There is, eventually. But in 2026, Amazon still controls roughly 38% of US eCommerce, more than the next 15 retailers combined.
A Walmart or TikTok presence is a smart addition. It's not a replacement.
Amazon is a complex platform with its own rules, its own ad ecosystem, its own algorithmic quirks, and now its own AI layer. We've built a team that knows how to play by all of them.
From initial setup to scaled performance, our Amazon experts plug into your business as part of a broader eCommerce strategy: setting up your storefront, optimizing your listings for both human shoppers and Amazon's AI, running paid media across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and Amazon DSP, and tying it all back to your wider business goals.
We also use a projection model that gives clients an honest, evidence-based picture of what Amazon can do for their bottom line — so the conversation is about real impact, not generic promises.
For Wild Grapes, that approach delivered a 98% increase in monthly Amazon sales, with five products on the first results page and two in the top two positions. For Donnelly Group's men's grooming line, it meant a successful launch across both Amazon US and Canada. For Domestic Objects, it was a path onto Amazon they didn't have the in-house expertise to build alone.
See how it played out for two of our clients:
Want to see whether Amazon could move the needle for your business? Talk to our eCommerce strategy team.
Amazon controls roughly 38% of US eCommerce, is the starting point for around 56% of US product searches, and operates the third-largest digital ad platform in the world. For most physical-product brands, "selling online" and "being findable on Amazon" are no longer separable. A strong website helps, but it doesn't reach the shoppers who never leave Amazon.
Around 56% of US shoppers begin their product research on Amazon rather than Google, according to multiple 2024 retail surveys. For categories like consumables, electronics, and home goods, that number climbs higher. The implication: ranking on Google isn't enough if your product listing on Amazon is weak or non-existent.
Yes — even more so. A strong website tells Google and your existing audience what you do. An Amazon presence reaches the much larger pool of buyers who never search Google for products at all. The two channels serve different shopper journeys, and the brands winning right now are running both in parallel rather than treating one as a substitute for the other.
Rufus is Amazon's generative AI shopping assistant, now available to all US shoppers in the Amazon app. Instead of returning a list of products, Rufus reads your listing — title, bullets, A+ Content, reviews, Q&A — and synthesizes an answer to the shopper's question, often shortlisting a handful of products. Listings that are clear, specific, and well-supported by reviews get pulled into those answers. Listings that aren't get left out, regardless of their organic rank.
The bigger risk isn't slow growth — it's letting a competitor build Amazon presence on the back of search demand for your category. Amazon's marketplace rewards accumulated history (reviews, sales velocity, account age), so the longer you wait, the more entrenched competing sellers become. Catching up later costs significantly more than starting now.
No, but the bar is higher than it used to be. Successful new launches in 2026 require a deliberate listing strategy (including A+ Content), a paid media plan from day one, a clear review-generation path (Amazon Vine, post-purchase outreach), and an understanding of how to be visible inside Rufus and other AI-driven shopping surfaces. It's achievable — Major Tom has launched brands onto Amazon US and Canada in well under 90 days — but it's not the "set it and forget it" play it was a decade ago.