Your Outsourced CMO
No. 06 · Amazon & Marketplaces
THE
TILL
Holiday shopping started in October. A plan that starts in November missed the first peak.
Adobe forecasts $95.8 billion spent online in October, twice what Cyber Week will sell. On Amazon, the stock and deal deadlines for Black Friday fell in October too. What is left now is the auction, and Amazon’s advertising is growing more than twice as fast as its own store. This plan shows what each sale really leaves you, where to stop bidding, and how to plan 2027 from the deadlines backward.
Where the holiday’s online money lands · Adobe forecast
US online retail, Adobe forecast, 28 September 2026, read on Adobe’s own page. Bars scaled to the November and December total.
2×
October against Cyber Week, $95.8 billion to $47.5 billion. A month against five days, and the month a November plan misses.
Inside Volume Six
WHAT’S
INSIDE
What lands in your inbox
A 14-page PDF with the till worksheet and the backward calendar to print, a scored readiness check and the January reset. Every number names its source. Read it in ten minutes.
No sales call attached. Unsubscribe in one click.
The premise
THE HOLIDAY
STARTED IN
OCTOBER
Adobe expects $275.1 billion to be spent online in the United States across November and December 2026, up 6.7%. It expects $95.8 billion in October alone, up 8%, growing faster than the season itself. Divide one by the other and October rings up 35 cents for every holiday dollar. That is our arithmetic on Adobe’s figures, and a forecast rather than a result.
The two days of Prime Big Deal Days, October 6 and 7, were forecast at $9.9 billion, two thirds of a Cyber Monday. That was the first peak, and a plan dated November 1 missed it.
On a marketplace, missing October costs more than a sales week. Black Friday stock had to check in at Amazon’s warehouses by October 28 at the latest to keep the Prime badge, and deals closed on October 20. What is left in November is the auction: paying for rank on stock whose position was fixed in October.
$95.8B
October. Forecast US online spend, up 8% on last year. Adobe, 28 September 2026.
35¢
For every holiday dollar. October’s $95.8B against $275.1B for November and December. Our arithmetic on Adobe’s forecast.
Oct 28
The last door. Latest arrival date for Black Friday stock to keep the Prime badge, on the slowest of three routes. Deals closed October 20. Amazon Seller Central.
Read the numbers fairly
Adobe’s figures are a forecast made on 28 September from US retail websites, more than a trillion visits, not a result. Amazon’s cut-off dates sit behind a seller login, so we quote them as eight trade and agency write-ups reported them. Confirm every date in your own account.
The cut
Amazon’s ad business grew twice as fast as its store.
Last holiday quarter Amazon’s advertising grew 23% to $21.3 billion. Fees from third-party sellers grew 11% to $52.8 billion. Its own online store grew 10%. Fees and ads together came to $74.1 billion, nine dollars for every ten its own store sold, and 34.7% of everything Amazon took in.
Walmart’s US ads business grew 41% in the same season, faster than the ecommerce it sits on. An auction prices on how many sellers need to win it, and Cyber Week is the week every seller needs to. A bid with no ceiling is not a marketing decision. It is a transfer.
Amazon, last holiday quarter · growth
Amazon Q4 2025 results, 5 February 2026, read on ir.aboutamazon.com. Advertising also counts vendors, publishers and authors; Amazon says sponsored ads in its store are the largest part.
Walmart, same season · growth
Walmart Q4 FY2026 release, 19 February 2026, quarter to 31 January.
One line to take to your team
We buy rank up to a ceiling. Past it, the sale belongs to the register.
Marketplace revenue is the marketplace’s number. Yours is what is left after the till. Report both, and lead with the second.
The competition
You are competing with people who do nothing else.
By one research firm’s estimate, fewer than 8,000 sellers now produce half of Amazon’s roughly $300 billion in US third-party sales. In 2023 it took 15,000. Active US sellers fell from 584,000 in January 2025 to 500,000 in March 2026.
Amazon disputes these figures and says they understate active sellers, new registrations and revenue per seller. We quote them as estimates, with the dispute attached. On those estimates the field is shrinking and concentrating: fewer, larger sellers taking a bigger share.
And the brands most annoyed by the fees are not leaving. Among the sellers most frustrated with Amazon’s fees, 42% are growing Amazon’s share of their revenue and 24% are cutting it, in a survey of 181 sellers. The plan still has to win on Amazon.
Sellers needed for half of US third-party sales
Marketplace Pulse estimates, 12 February 2026 and 16 April 2026; seller survey 25 February to 6 March, 181 sellers. Amazon disputes the estimates (Modern Retail, 23 April 2026).
What a full-time operator does that a side channel does not
That list is the brief Hawke’s marketplace team runs, month to month, for brands with one person on Amazon and nine other channels to look after.
Through the peak
THE REST OF THE SEASON
October is closed. Three windows are left, each with one job. TikTok Shop’s own Black Friday campaign runs November 11 to 30, so the first live peak lands two weeks before Black Friday (TikTok Newsroom, 14 October 2026).
01 · Now to November 20
Pull the till, set the ceiling
Fees, fulfilment, storage and ad spend per product, divided by sales. Then a maximum per product, written down, with one person who can approve going past it.
02 · November 26 to 30
Hold the ceiling
Raise bids only on products with stock past mid-December and a till under the line. Everything else is rented rank, paid for out of January’s margin.
03 · January 14 to 31
Run the reset
Peak fulfilment fees end January 14 and the returns window closes January 31. Pull the season’s till, cut what fed the register, and write 2027 backward from Amazon’s dates.
Comprehensive à la carte services, month-to-month. A premier partner to Google, Facebook and TikTok, and the team behind more than 3,000 brands.
Ninety minutes, no charge
The till audit.
We pull fees plus ads as a share of sales for every product you advertised this quarter, show you which ones paid the register more than they earned, and hand back a 2027 calendar with your purchase-order dates on it.
Run the book yourself, or bring us the account. Amazon, Walmart and TikTok Shop, run month to month by people who do nothing else: the calendar, the bids, the catalogue and the fee audit.
01
Your till, per product
Fees and ads as a share of price for every product you advertised this quarter, on your own account.
02
What fed the register
The products that paid the marketplace more than they kept, and what to reprice or cut before 2027.
03
2027, dated backward
Amazon’s arrival and deal dates on next year’s weeks, with your purchase-order dates in the last column.