Research Notebook
How technology is changing commerce, and what operators need to understand before the shift becomes obvious.
AI Won't Fix Broken Work
A pricing change takes four days, and three of them are waiting. Pointing AI at the person optimizes the part that was already working. The real constraint is the design of the work.
What Google AI Mode Reveals About the Future of Product Data
Twelve first-party Google AI Mode tests show how buyer constraints shape the product attributes, sources, and recommendations that appear in AI shopping answers.
Prime Day 2026 Set a Record and Shrank the Cart at the Same Time. The Brands That Won Saw It Coming.
Adobe says Prime Day 2026 hit a record $8.3 billion on day one. Numerator says the average cart shrank 16%. Both are right. Here is what the essentials-driven, smaller-basket event means for marketplace sellers, and why the reorder brands won.
I Got Cited in Two Google AI Surfaces in One Week. Here's What the Cited Posts Had in Common.
In one week, two posts from this site were cited in Google's AI Overview and AI Mode. Two data points cannot reveal Google's algorithm, but the cited posts shared five observable traits that map to core GEO principles. Here is the honest teardown.
Prime Day 2026 Is the First One Running on Alexa for Shopping. Most Sellers Aren't Ready.
Prime Day 2026 runs June 23-26, the first Prime Day with Alexa for Shopping behind every search box. The AI answers before shoppers see results, and auto-buy makes it a reorder event too. Here is what to check before June 23.
83% of Marketplace Sellers Use AI. 25% Say It Hasn't Moved Anything. Here's the Gap.
The Marketplace Pulse 2026 Seller Index surveyed sellers representing $2B+ in revenue. 83% use AI. 25% report no measurable results. Amazon's Rufus made $12B. Here's why platform AI is winning and seller AI is not, and what to change.
Six Months Ago, Agentic Commerce Was a Thesis. Today, Every Major Research Firm Has Put a Number on It.
Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Gartner, IDC, and Juniper Research all published agentic commerce forecasts in the last six months. They agree on the direction. Walmart, Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI are shipping products that confirm the forecasts. Here's what marketplace sellers should do given the consensus.
Walmart's Q1 Earnings Revealed the Real Sparky Shift: From Discovery to Reorder
Everyone is quoting Walmart's Sparky growth numbers from Q1 earnings. The line that matters is about usage: Sparky is becoming a reorder engine for consumables, not just a discovery tool. Here is what that means for marketplace sellers.
Google Is Now Writing Your Ads With Gemini. Your Product Data Just Became Your Ad Copy.
At Google Marketing Live 2026, Google confirmed Gemini now writes shopping ad descriptions from your product data and website. Your data quality is now your ad copy quality. Here's what marketplace sellers should audit this week.
The 6-Dimension GEO Audit Framework: How to Score Your Amazon Listing for AI Visibility
A concrete scoring system for auditing your Amazon listings against how Rufus, Alexa for Shopping, Sparky, and ChatGPT actually read product data. Six dimensions, scored 0-3 each, with weak vs strong examples and priority fixes.
Rufus Is Dead. Long Live Alexa for Shopping. Here's What Changes for Marketplace Sellers.
Amazon retired the Rufus brand on May 13 and merged it into Alexa for Shopping, a unified agentic shopping experience across mobile, desktop, and Echo devices. Here's the practitioner take on what changes for marketplace sellers and what to audit this week.
Agentic Commerce Is Months Away. Here's What Marketplace Sellers Should Do Now.
Google and OpenAI's commerce leads just told Fast Company that agentic commerce is months away from a tipping point. Here's the practitioner playbook for marketplace sellers in the 90 days before it arrives.