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Sellers are losing thousands to Amazon’s off-site ad machine

Posted on by SellerBites

It’s the end of the week, but Amazon clearly didn’t get the memo, everything just keeps coming in hot. ♨️

BLACK MARKET

Amazon sellers are waking up to hidden off-Amazon ad spend quietly draining their budgets.

According to My Amazon Guy, some sellers are seeing ROAS below 1% on ads they didn’t even know they were paying for. Worse? You won’t notice until the invoice lands in your inbox. 😬

💸 Now you see it, now you don’t

Your ad dollars might be taking an unapproved detour off Amazon.

  • Thousands of dollars go to low-performing off-Amazon ads that you’ll only spot on invoices.
  • The “limit off-Amazon spend” toggle hardly helps, as costs continue to rise despite it. 
  • Refund requests are often denied since Amazon claims all charges are valid if they result from “customer clicks.” 

Sellers also have no clear visibility into where their ads are actually showing up. One seller, Prue Millsap of Beauty by Earth, discovered nearly $300K wasted this way. 

📉 Sellers are frustrated

Across Reddit, the chorus is growing louder. Common complaints include:

  • ACOS over 100% on external placements
  • No list of where ads actually show
  • “Limit” toggle doesn’t limit much
  • Cookie-cutter support replies offering zero real fixes

🚨 Eyes on the prize

Since there’s no true opt-out, seasoned advertisers are building their own defenses like switching to manual campaigns only and building and uploading deny lists of useless domains. 

It’s tedious work—and you have to re-upload that deny list every 30 days—but for now, it’s the only way to plug the leak.

Check out the full story here:

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BITES OF THE WEEK

AMAZON NEWS

Amazon’s ‘Add to Delivery’ just made impulse shopping effortless

Amazon just made impulse shopping dangerously easy for Prime members. 

According to PPC Land, the new “Add to Delivery” feature lets U.S. customers tack extra items onto upcoming orders with a single tap, no new checkout, no shipping fees, no hesitation.

🛒 Shop ‘til they ship

Prime members will now see a blue “Add to Delivery” button on eligible items. If it fits into their next shipment before it leaves the warehouse, it’s added instantly.

  • Works only for deliveries arriving later today or tomorrow
  • Applies to pretty much everything—pantry goods, gadgets, clothes, you name it
  • Includes an “Undo” button in case you have second thoughts

Basically, it’s Amazon’s solution  for every “ugh, I forgot to add toothpaste” moment.

📦 Why Amazon’s doing it

The move kills checkout friction while boosting the perceived value of Prime. It gets customers to buy more, faster, while Amazon quietly saves on packaging, fulfillment, and logistics.

  • Encourages quicker purchases, since shoppers know they can add items later
  • Consolidates deliveries, cutting costs and shipping waste
  • Could mess with attribution models, since purchases may happen hours after the first click

And this is NOT random. The new feature dropped days before Prime Big Deal Days (Oct 7–8), a perfect test to see if convenience translates into bigger carts.

🎯 What sellers should watch

This might sound like a small UX tweak, but it could shake up retail media strategies and inventory forecasting.

Amazon just made it even easier for customers to shop impulsively, so sellers better be ready for more unpredictable (but potentially profitable) buying behavior.

SELLER REFRESHER

Amazon overhauls ‘Manage All Inventory’

Amazon’s Manage All Inventory page just got a major makeover, one that actually makes listing management faster, cleaner, and a lot less rage-inducing.

🗂️ The new flow, simplified

This redesign tackles one of sellers’ biggest pain points: finding the right task in a sea of listings. 

Instead of clicking through endless tabs, the page now guides you step-by-step minus the clutter.

  • Complete drafts: Everything you’ve started lives here. Add missing info, resolve restrictions, and finally clear that “incomplete” pile haunting your dashboard.
  • Activate listings: Use Quick Filters to spot and fix inactive or suppressed listings, whether they’re missing from search, out of stock, or tripped up by pricing errors.
  • Optimize listings: Amazon’s new bulk optimization tools offer tailored recommendations to boost visibility, fill in product data gaps, and improve listing quality.

You can explore the refreshed setup now in Manage All Inventory, and actually feel like Amazon wants you to get things done. 

Easily one of the most seller-friendly updates of the year.