eBay Joins the Agentic AI Race 🤖

Plus: Shopify’s AI ‘Sidekick’ gets major upgrades ⚙️, while Amazon new AI fine-tunes your product listings 🦾!

May 14, 2025

Ever wondered what happens when your shopping cart thinks before you do? That’s the magic of Agentic AI 🧠!

Hi there, and welcome to another issue of The Ecom Press 🗞️!

This week, we’re talking smart stores, smarter platforms, and even smarter listings 📋. eBay’s joining the agentic AI race, Shopify's upgraded Sidekick is thinking two steps ahead, and Amazon just made product listing updates way easier.

In other news, there's some tariff turbulence at the border, but a bit of breathing room is on the way 😮‍💨.

A lot’s happening, already. Let’s get into it 🏄‍♂️! 

In a rush? Here's the juice🤭:

🤖 eBay joins the agentic AI race.

⚙️ Shopify’s AI ‘Sidekick’ gets major upgrades.

🦾 Amazon new AI fine-tunes your product listings.

🧾 Tariff update: Temporary relief incoming.

🚀 Ecom strategies: How to build a subscription store with Shopify

⚡️Worthy Mentions

Source: eBay 

eBay recently has launched a new agentic AI shopping assistant, built to offer real-time, personalized product suggestions directly within the buying experience. It's a notable step toward turning ecommerce platforms into proactive shopping companions.

Here’s the lowdown ⬇️:

🛍️ Integrated, Intelligent Recommendations: eBay’s new agent is designed to act throughout the entire buying journey, showing up on product pages, reacting to user searches, or offering suggestions before you even ask. Whether you're picking a gift or building out your seasonal wishlist, the agent helps surface relevant items without breaking the flow.

🔧 Built on Scale, Experience, and Infrastructure: eBay is leveraging its deep historical data, customer insight, and marketplace scale to tailor every recommendation. The agent taps into decades of purchasing patterns, category trends, and behavioral cues to deliver results that feel highly relevant to the individual.

🧠 From Chatbots to Agentic Commerce: Unlike past chat features, this AI doesn’t wait to be summoned. It engages contextually, anticipating shopper needs and making in-the-moment suggestions. eBay sees this as the foundation for a broader suite of agent-powered tools that help users discover, decide, and transact faster.

🔐 Safety, Transparency, and Rollout: The feature is currently live for a small group of U.S. users and will roll out gradually. All AI capabilities are developed with input from eBay’s Responsible AI team to ensure ethical implementation across safety, fairness, and transparency dimensions.

Why it matters 🤔

As more ecommerce giants join the agentic AI race, we’re seeing an uptick in predictive engagement defining the shopping journey as opposed to just a passive search. It’s more like a subtle transition from interface design to intent design, where AI doesn’t just react but initiates. It’s safe to say we’re inching towards relevance starting before a customer even knows what they want to buy. 

And for these agents to recommend your brand in the buyer’s journey, it’s best to align your listings and data for AI visibility.

Source: Shopify

Shopify has released a major update to Sidekick, its AI-powered assistant built into the ecommerce platform. The upgrade focuses on multi-step reasoning, integrated image generation, and contextual problem-solving to help merchants handle complex tasks directly within the Shopify admin.

Here are the deets ⬇️:

🧠 Advanced Reasoning: Sidekick can now assess multiple data sources (sales, inventory, customer behavior) simultaneously to diagnose issues (like a dip in sales) and recommend actionable solutions.

🖼️ Image Generation: Merchants can create polished product and marketing visuals directly through Sidekick, removing the need for external tools.

📊 Operational Support: It can now help segment customers more precisely, manage inventory, generate content, organize products, and even automate customer replies via Shopify Inbox.

💬 Natural Language Commands: Merchants can ask Sidekick natural-language questions like “Why are sales down?” or “Launch a new promo,” and get contextual, data-driven responses.

💡 Continuous Learning: Sidekick improves over time, learning from store-specific usage patterns to refine its advice.

🛠️ Runs on Shopify Magic: Sidekick is powered by Shopify Magic, the broader suite of AI tools within Shopify, and is now available across all users and all 20 supported admin languages.

Why it matters 🤷‍♂️

While speed is important, this is more about improving judgement. When AI can flag revenue leaks, link them to inventory missteps, and suggest the fix, it bolsters your ability to operate with foresight and not just react. And that kind of leverage changes how brands grow, scaling effectively.

Source: Amazon

Amazon is rolling out a new AI feature called Enhance My Listing, designed to help sellers upgrade their existing listings with AI-generated suggestions, tuned to seasonal trends and customer behavior.

Here’s the scoop 🍨:

🛠️ Smarter Listing Upgrades: Instead of starting from scratch, sellers can now use EML to refresh old listings with timely product titles, detailed attributes, and updated descriptions, all suggested by AI trained on live Amazon shopper data.

📊 Context-Driven Recommendations: The tool pulls insights from customer engagement patterns, meaning the updates reflect what real buyers are clicking, buying, and searching for, not generic templates.

🎯 Seller-Friendly Controls: Sellers can review, accept, modify, or reject AI suggestions, keeping full editorial discretion.

🚀 Built on Proven AI Tools: Amazon says 900,000+ sellers have used its generative tools so far. With a 90% content acceptance rate and a 40% improvement in listing quality, EML builds on that same momentum, now applied to listings already live in the marketplace.

📦 Rolling Out Now: The tool is currently available to select U.S. sellers, with a broader release on the way in the coming weeks.

Why it matters 🤨

For many ecommerce sellers, the listings that need the most attention are the long-forgotten bestsellers from three years ago. With Enhance My Listing, you can bring those pages back into focus, using real-time shopper signals to keep listings sharp without a manual rewrite. And as cost pressures mount, tools that save time and improve conversion potential will only grow in value.

🧾 Tariff update: Temporary relief incoming.

For the next 90 days, U.S., China trade just got lighter—at least for now. Here are some of the updates:

🇺🇸 U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are dropping from 145% to 30%

🇨🇳 China is slashing its own tariffs on U.S. exports from 125% to 10%

📦 Small parcels from China sent via postal services now face 54% + $100 per package, down from 120%/$200

🚚 Commercial shipments (under $800) now face 30%, instead of 145%

🧪 Fentanyl-related goods remain at 20%

All of this kicks in May 14, 2025, and lasts for 90 days, unless extended.

🛎️ The Ecom Press Insider

Source: ChatGPT Image Generator

Ecom Fact: According to a recent study from DHL Express, 68% of U.S. small businesses are hitting or beating their 2025 goals, despite tariffs. And what’s helping them stay on track? A rapid pivot to AI and automation. 

Nearly 6 in 10 say operational costs are their biggest challenge, but instead of pulling back, they’re doubling down on digital tools to go global, with Europe, Asia, and Latin America leading the expansion map 🌍.

🚀 Ecom Strategies: How to build a subscription store with Shopify

Subscriptions are a smart revenue strategy for ecommerce brands selling everything from supplements to socks. Whether you’re offering recurring refills or curated boxes, Shopify makes it surprisingly simple to build a subscription-based store.

Here’s a quick 5-step playbook to help you set one up ⬇️

1. Start with the Product 🛒: Create your subscription product in Shopify with clear descriptions, images, pricing, and inventory details. Add any variants (like flavors or sizes) and set the foundation for recurring purchases.

2. Add the Subscription App 🎯: Install the free Shopify Subscriptions app, built by Shopify itself, to offer auto-renew options right on your product page. You can incentivize sign-ups with discounts like “Subscribe and Save 10%”.

3. Customize Plans and Options 🔧: Tailor plans to customer habits (monthly, bi-monthly, etc.). For example, offer 10% off for monthly subscribers and 5% for every-two-month users. It’s all about flexibility and recurring value.

4. Enable Subscription Management 🔁: Let customers manage their subscriptions via a self-service portal. This builds trust and keeps cancellations lower. Add a “Manage My Subscriptions” link to your store’s top menu for easy access.

5. Design Around Discovery ✨: Use Shopify’s themes to make your product shine, then tweak the placement of the subscription widget (e.g., right under the price) so users can easily opt in to recurring purchases.

With recurring revenue, smoother inventory planning, and stronger retention, subscriptions might just be your brand’s best growth lever. The tools are already built into Shopify. All you’ve got to do is set them up right.

To dive deeper and see it all in action, check out the full video on YouTube 📺—it’s worth the watch.

⚡️Worthy Mentions

Wrapping up…

Another week, another wave of AI shaking up ecommerce ⚡️. 

From personalized shopping agents to smarter store assistants, there’s definitely no slowing down. What’s clear? Staying competitive now means staying ahead of the AI curve.

We’ll keep tracking the buzz and bringing you the need-to-know updates. So, let's make it a date, shall we 😏?

Hit that subscribe button, and we’ll catch you next week, same place, same time 👋.