The CPG Guys – Commerce Riff with Sri & Peter
Episode 4: Amazon Accelerate 2025 Recap
Air Date: September 23, 2025
Hosts: Sri Rajagopalan & Peter V.S. Bond

Episode Overview

This episode of The CPG Guys’ Commerce Riff is a dynamic recap of Amazon Accelerate 2025, the annual conference for Amazon’s third-party sellers. Co-host Sri Rajagopalan shares first-hand insights from the event, highlighting Amazon's major announcements and the evolving opportunities for CPG brands and retailers on the marketplace. The discussion dives into innovations around fulfillment, AI-powered seller tools, and advertising advancements aimed at supercharging third-party sellers' growth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Amazon Accelerate & Third-Party Sellers

[02:17]

• What is Amazon Accelerate?
  Sri explains it’s the premier annual conference hosted by Amazon for its third-party sellers, held at the Seattle Convention Center.
• Scale and Relevance:
  “Amazon's third party marketplace sellers business is larger than its first Party business and most of CPG and retail ignores it...because it doesn't even see it in the Nielsen and IRI Circana market share...” (Sri, [02:45])
• Attendees ranged from one-product startups to established sellers with hundreds of SKUs running millions in business.

2. Major Announcements: Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF)

[03:43]

• What is MCF? Peter defines it:
  “It's the ability for sellers to fulfill across other selling platforms but use Amazon's Fulfillment Network for the reliable customer experience shoppers are used to.”

• Details of the Announcement:
  Over 600,000 sellers move 5 billion products a year through Amazon’s fulfillment network. Amazon now enables these sellers to fulfill orders on external platforms (Shopify, Shein, Walmart 3P) using Amazon FBA.

  • Benefits: Reliable delivery, easy returns, efficient inventory management, best-in-class logistics.
  • Sri emphasizes seller excitement:
    “These are sellers of all scale...they were thrilled. They clapped. These announcements were huge for them...” (Sri, [05:35])

• Strategic Implications:
  “Amazon is not just a retailer, not just an advertising company, not just a web services company. It's now a scaled fulfillment company.” (Peter, [05:11])

3. Agentic AI – The Next Leap in Seller Tools

[06:07]

• Seller Assistant’s Evolution:

  • “Last week they announced the next evolution of Seller Assistant enhanced with agentic AI capabilities, an important step forward that allows AI to not just respond, but to actually reason, plan, and help take action with the seller's permission.” (Peter, [06:12])
  • Seller Assistant can now proactively monitor inventory, handle routine and complex tasks, and deliver actionable recommendations—freeing sellers to focus on innovation.
  • Sri adds a practical example:
    “When a seller asks about timing a shipment to prepare for increased seasonal demand, Seller Assistant will...deliver a detailed inventory plan with recommendations for the best allocation between fulfillment by Amazon and Amazon Warehousing to optimize fastest delivery speeds at lower storage cost.” (Sri, [07:43])

• First-hand Engagement:
  Sri interviewed four key participants at Accelerate, including Wayne Yu, GM of Multichannel Fulfillment and Buy with Prime, who provided in-depth passion and transparency around Amazon’s seller tools and their future roadmap.

• Proactive Account Health:
  New AI proactively manages seller account health, providing elite support across the platform.

4. Product Launch Innovations

[08:43]

• AI-Powered Tools for New Product Success:
  • Announcement from Mary Beth Westmoreland (Amazon VP, Selling Partner Experience): New tools that use AI to help sellers identify product opportunities, optimize launches, and “reduce launch costs and improve discoverability and conversion.”
  • These features support launching with the right inventory, meeting customer demand patterns, and boosting conversions.

5. Advertising & Creative Studio: AI Takes Center Stage

[09:15]

• Advertising Tools for Sellers:

  • Introduction of Creative Studio, an AI-powered creative partner.
  • “With access to a conversational AI powered creative partner that conducts product and audience research, brainstorms ideas, develops creative concepts in a storyboard format and produces compelling video and display ads...” (Sri, [09:19])
  • Leveraging Amazon’s retail insights and AI, sellers can now develop high-quality campaign creatives, audience targeting, and video/display ads.
  • The tool analyzes product pages, brand stores, shopper signals, and more to recommend effective ad strategies.

• Implications:
  “This is powerful stuff man. Using AI to tell you how healthy your account is for growth and then for ads.” (Sri, [10:07])

6. The Takeaway & Closing Thoughts

[10:34]

• The hosts emphasize the pace of innovation on Amazon’s third-party platform and urge CPG pros not to ignore it.
• Sri’s final thought:
  “Get informed, be curious, don’t be...that Luddite that still relies on the warehouse only platform.” ([10:55])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Amazon’s third party marketplace sellers business is larger than its first party business, and most of CPG and retail ignores it...because it doesn't even see it in the Nielsen and IRI Circana market share...” – Sri ([02:45])
• “Amazon is not just a retailer, not just an advertising company, not just a web services company. It's now a scaled fulfillment company.” – Peter ([05:11])
• “Seller Assistant...will actually analyze their entire catalog comparing historical data, current trends. Within moments it'll deliver a detailed inventory plan...” – Sri ([07:34])
• “With access to a conversational AI powered creative partner that...produces compelling video and display ads...” – Sri ([09:19])
• “Get informed, be curious, don’t be...that Luddite that still relies on the warehouse only platform.” – Sri ([10:55])

Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:17] – Sri recaps attending Amazon Accelerate 2025 and shares seller market data.
• [03:43] – Peter and Sri discuss Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF) and strategic implications.
• [05:35] – Seller response to MCF and the arrival of agentic AI on the platform.
• [06:07] – Deep dive on Seller Assistant enhancements & AI’s proactive capabilities.
• [07:43] – Sri reveals recorded podcast interviews with sellers, analysts, and Amazon exec Wayne Yu.
• [08:43] – Launch of new AI-powered product launch tools, as announced by Mary Beth Westmoreland.
• [09:15] – Reveal of Creative Studio and AI-enabled ad campaign creation.
• [10:55] – Closing thoughts: don’t ignore third-party innovation, be curious, embrace change.

Final Thoughts

This episode offers an essential recap of the cutting-edge technology and support Amazon is rolling out for its seller ecosystem. Peter and Sri balance industry context, hands-on event impressions, and thoughtful analysis of what these changes mean for CPG professionals, both today and into the future. The message is clear: innovation in third-party selling is accelerating rapidly, and those who don’t adapt risk being left behind.