Amazon Accelerate 2025: Highlights and Takeaways

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the E Commerce Made simple podcast. I'm Jerome de Guignier, your host, and today I'm having a chat with Juan Andres Perez Blanco from our, uh, partner Vasque, uh, about the highlights of the show, Amazon Accelerate 2025, which happened in Seattle. If you couldn't make it the show or in, or if you want a roundup of insights, this is exactly the webinar for you. We will look back at Amazon's biggest seller event, bringing you key takeaways like Amazon's rapid adoption of AI and all the things they've, uh, talked about and announced and the other tools that they've produced and developed to facilitate global expansion, reducing barriers for sellers and making it even easier to explain globally. So if you're into Amazon in expansion, in global expansion, this webinar, uh, once again is for you. Enjoy. Hello and welcome, everyone, to the E Commerce Made simple podcast and webinar. Uh, I'm very excited today because we are still on the energy wave of the Accelerate show, which happened in September 2026, and we were there with Avast. And today I'm excited because I'm having Juan from Avasque today. And so I've said your name Juan. And I said Avasque. Maybe we want to know a bit more about you and just a few words on Avasque.

Speaker A: Sure thing. Thank you very much, Rome. So, as he mentioned, my name is Juan. I'm, um, with the business expansion team here at Avask, and our company is really here to help businesses that are trying to go beyond borders. So if you're trying to expand from one marketplace to another country, that's where we can help you and guide you. That's what we were at Accelerate for really connecting with our sellers with new sellers, trying to just get an idea as to how the whole environment is growing, how it's changing, and seeing how we can adapt and continue helping and serving our sellers.

Speaker B: Great. Exactly. That's what Avast is. And full disclaimer. Avask is a partner and has been for many, many years. So, um, we're, we're super happy. We work a lot together, so it makes a lot of sense to team up and maybe you will understand a bit more through the, that, uh, webinar. So first, maybe to get into Accelerate. Juan, was it your first time as Accelerate? And could you maybe talk about or explain your experience of Accelerate for those who maybe doesn't don't know that show?

Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. And actually it was my first show and, uh, it was really exciting. It was really cool to See just all, all the people and getting to know some, not only the sellers but also many of the different partners and members of the service provider network that Amazon has. So we were really getting a full exposure to an endtoend solution for every seller. It was really exciting to, to get to speak to the people in person that were so used to just communicating over the phone or via uh, video call, but also finding new partners that are able to you know, bridge the gap in those, in that, in that area, that gray area where we wouldn't necessarily be able to help it. And it was really, really, really exciting. I'll say that the amount of people and the amount of feedback that we get from these shows is always exciting. So seeing it for the first time in person was definitely uh, something to look forward to next year.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with you that it's, it's really interesting to see the, the, the energy, all the activity and actually a lot, a lot of different parts of Amazon are there. Amazon Advertising is there obviously, but then Amazon, Amazon Global uh, Shipping, Amazon all the different, but like fba, fbm like you could see all the different uh, structures of, of Amazon which really interesting and I remember we had a chat with a, A uh, brand earlier on and they was asking okay, who should attend and what, you know and why. And for me two profiles could, could attend. It's really, you can have the very operational people who are handling Amazon on an operational level like the brand managers or the E commerce managers of, of brands coming in to solve problems because you can meet a lot of the executive like not executive but the, the different teams, the KYC teams who are in charge of your accounts and really meet face to face which in the real life doesn't happen really because they're all behind emails. Um, that's a great thing. But you could also have the more strategic people coming in and to get new ideas, get new ideas on the trends on what's coming up and come home with new ideas to push the business and push the teams towards uh, different things. And I think that's super insightful. So you could have from the very operational to the very strategic and even to the senior people who don't who are not running Amazon to go there. I mean Juan, we saw the, the keynotes and the like you see Andy Jassy the CEO speaking about the values and how Amazon M goes and then you've got the different teams presenting and like the AI and all those things and it ca, it's a, it was an inspiration at least for me to come home and say, wow, okay, there's several concepts I took home and I applied straight away, um, in the business. So that was um, that was great. One question for you, Juan, what was your, did you have a target? I obviously as a, uh, biz dev guy, you probably had sort of, uh, targets from the business point of view. But did you have any personal targets or things and how did you achieve them?

Speaker A: Yeah, so the biggest thing obviously when we come to these uh, trade shows and we get this big events is aside from obviously getting to know as many people as possible, our biggest target. Because we're the newest team within the US what we're trying to accomplish is creating new partnerships that are able to connect us with the right people within the US or other service providers that help US based sellers that help people in this hemisphere basically expand so that we are not just working in a silo and we're actually working similarly. How to how our counterparts in the eu, our main office in the UK or uh, some of our EU offices work. The same way that we would partner with you is now also finding some of the service providers that are already part of the SPN so that we can work in tandem and more cohesively, really help these sellers. So our biggest, and I would say my personal goal was to leave with at least five new partnerships. And I'm happy to say that, uh, I was able to accomplish that. Not only were we able to get a lot of feedback from existing sellers and how happy they were with different partners that we have, but we were also able to create new relationships, which is really exciting because that means that not only can we now use these new strategies or these new people, these new companies to further serve our clients, we also continue expanding the reach that Avasque has as a company to really, really become a full ecosystem for sellers to just have access to anything that they need. And that makes me think of one thing. Jerome, I assume you've come, you've gone to accelerate several times at this point. What surprised you the most? What would you say has changed the most over this past couple of years that you have attended?

Speaker B: I think each time is a bit of a surprise in, in the sense of it's growing or it's um, it's getting more professional or it's getting wider and there's more services. And the speed of the change or the speed of the evolution for me is really surprising because of course the world is moving, AI ah, is coming and so on, but the speed at which Amazon is moving at Scale is really uh, impressive and to any competitor is like okay, they are so. And I'm not obviously I'm part of the Amazon ecosystem but I don't, you know, I'm not part of Amazon. So I'm just looking from far and saying wow, they are so much in advance in terms of networks built and you know, all the logistics, all the advertising or all those different bits and pieces. That's amazing. If you go and you're at a Walmart, uh, you're shein. You're you know Temu, all of those are you know, got lots of strengths but like the scale of Amazon Worldwide, what they've built, like no one can really compete today with all of those different bits and pieces. And I was talking with Amazon, someone from Amazon Shipping for example. They can do shipping as in you could have DHL, FedEx and Amazon shipping like as a single service. So uh, all that for me that those things happening like you, you see the vision and usually would say okay, well it will take you know, five years, 10 years. No, no, it's like it's taking six months, it's taking four months and it's going very fast. And for example AI and creative studio as they, you know and especially on the ad spot you've got another show called Unboxed and you see those things. But it's like okay, no it's now it's working okay. That for me that, that kind of uh, speed is really uh, really impressive. Impressive. Um, and, and they are keeping it up and they're sort of still achieving um, their, their target. So that, that was for me I uh, think a big uh, uh, uh, one of the big things which impressed me and I was wondering for you what was the main thing you came up with or the main learnings or the things which were most impressive? Because even uh, following up all the new announcements is, is a like is a job right?

Speaker A: Because there's so many, I was going to say there, there were so many new announcements but I'll say obviously the ones that we took home were the. Where we could see that there was an advantage to our sellers. It uh, I was really impressed with like you said, how fast they have been moving but, but the biggest thing is how quickly they adapted and they started using AI to really leverage their systems. So with us being in the global compliance, the global expansion uh space, looking at how they're encouraging their sellers to go beyond their home country, to go beyond their home just market is really impressive and it's encouraging for people like US that help aid that process as well. So the biggest thing that I saw is how basically it gives sellers all the tools that they need to really go from, let's say the U.S. let's say Asia, let's say some, even from within Europe, if you want to move to the next country where you might not necessarily speak the language. Amazon's not providing you with solutions for the shipping, it's providing you with solutions for listings for I, for optimization. There are so many tools where you don't have to do the work manually anymore, you don't have to necessarily outsource all of it. So it's cutting out and taking away the friction which makes it easier for you to now consider. Okay, if I want to go from the US and start selling Europe now, it's not as big of a hurdle as it was before that. That's for me one of the biggest things where before most sellers would think, okay, I'm in the us, I'm going to go to Canada and Mexico because they're close now, they basically just closed up that gap and they're able to expand seamlessly almost. So that for me was very exciting because that means that Amazon is encouraging all their sellers to consider expanding globally, to consider going and making sure that their successful business is also successful in any of the other markets that they want to explore.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if drilling down that expansion, uh, I've always like, you've got technical features like Creative Studio, creating a video with AI is like a technical stuff, but within their own platform. Okay, it's really a great achievement. But global expansion, as we both know, there's lots of uh, bits and pieces like compliance, tax authorities, like there's lots of external stakeholders, let's say, and,

Speaker A: and

Speaker B: pressures and things you need to handle. And I've always been, uh, careful about sometimes, or in the case of Amazon, underplaying the complexity sometimes of going, uh, especially in Europe where we love to make things, uh, complicated. Um, it's like, how do you navigate that? Because Amazon is going fast and is helping, but the authorities in Europe are not improving, uh, as far as I know, in terms of reducing the complexity. Yes and no, because One Stop Shop has improved things. So, um, it's not completely true to what I'm saying, but the fact is it's still very complicated to get VAT everywhere in Europe and that's why Vasque is here and that's why we're here also to support. But how do you feel that those, those promises. Because Amazon, there's lots of promises in what they are announcing. How do you feel the promises on, um, on the expansion is really effective or what's your feel on that?

Speaker A: So that's a, that's a great point and a great question. The biggest thing that Amazon is doing with this is encouraging the sellers. I feel like from my experience, what I have seen is sellers are hesitant to make the jump and really enter these other markets because there is a high barrier to entry. So what Amazon is doing is grabbing a barrier that's currently here and trying to lower it a little bit to make it more enticing and to invite people to, okay, take the leap. That's where we would come in and assist in that process. Because like you said, there are some processes that are a little bit more archaic. There are still some letters that need to be sent in the post, they need to be sent by mail. And when you have to ship something all the way to the US it can be a hassle, it can take a long time. So that's why we exist, to help in that process and kind of bridge that technology gap, almost helping the tax authorities communicate properly and helping sellers feel that peace of mind. But I do feel like what Amazon is doing is just helping with the encouragement. I am giving you the tools or I'm giving you solutions that you don't have to use, but can use so that you can more easily expand to these other markets. And that way you're not having that friction just from the get go of, oh, uh, I have so much stuff to do. When you look at a checklist of everything that you have to do to properly expand or to properly open a market, obviously it can be overwhelming. So the fact that Amazon is now taking on and providing tools that help ease that checklist so that you have less stuff to do on your own. That's where I feel like the biggest difference is. Before sellers would feel alone, they would need somebody to either hold their hand or a little push in the back to be like, okay, we're doing this because doesn't matter how successful you are in one country, it doesn't guarantee the same success if you don't try it. If you don't expand, there's no you like you. You can't do anything. You cannot sell if you don't have a presence. So the biggest thing that I feel is we're accomplishing with this is Amazon is now giving you tools to more easily start the process so that you don't feel like you're going at it alone. And then you have companies like ours, that are able to also help with what's still old school about the process. Like you said, the VAT registrations and Europe has made strides with the OSS and the IOSS programs, where obviously you can simplify a lot of the processes, but it's always, it has to continue evolving. And in an effort to keep the pace, Europe at some point is going to have to continue evolving, but they're going to do it at their own pace. When they see the need to evolve, they will. But for that to happen, I do feel like we need more sellers from around the world to continue showing interest and continue showing, hey, there's a need for you guys to bring everything up to this new era. So we see it with countries now sending some correspondence via email, which is unheard of in some other countries. So I do feel like they're making the right moves. Is it taking longer where it's really hard, like you said, to keep up with Amazon, you can't expect countries and you can't expect other companies to really follow the example of Amazon at all times. So I feel like that's where we have to understand the biggest difference. Amazon's um, moving at a pace that is probably not sustainable for many other entities and many other brands, just companies as a whole. And when you look at the tax authorities, they have other responsibilities as well, not just E commerce. So thinking that they would move as quickly as Amazon is not realistic. But I do feel like they're going in the right direction and there is some light at the end of the tunnel, if you will, with that. It makes me think from the conversations that you had during uh, during Accelerate, what were some of the highlights? What did you find out that people were either struggling with, looking for help with. What was the main thing people were looking for when speaking with your team?

Speaker B: So that's also the beauty of Accelerate. There's lots of sellers, like lots and lots of sellers and eager to Lear was one of the things uh, one of my learnings and uh, we had uh, uh speaking uh, slot with uh, Alexandra where we spoke together about okay, how to expand. There was loads of people listening but then when I was walking around there was all the uh, topics and like all of them were really loaded with people interested to learn. So when, when you get closer to them, say okay, are you, are you expanding this? Not right now, but I really want to get prepared to learn. So the number of, of uh, topics is, is like in line with the complexities of E Commerce. Right? It's like between compliance Advertising, you know, shipping logistics, supply chain taxes, uh, and so on. So I think there was, I couldn't feel uh, one specific topic which was the main topic. Um, I think what everyone is trying to do is to keep pace with, with Amazon itself but with you know, with all the other sellers using AI, ChatGPT, uh, you know, translating faster, uh, doing things faster, learning faster, hacking things, uh, faster. And I think this uh, and even for agencies for ourselves where we do Amazon all day, every day, all the time, it's like how do we keep pace with all, with you know some things are relevant and to the point you talked about earlier is like not all of the um, innovations from Amazon are working perfectly or working straight away but they are giving an indication of a direction. So it's like how do we get uh, into that? And one of the things which were for me impressive on the show and it's a bit to your point is Amazon is lowering the barrier to entry basically everywhere and, and globally. So they were giving to smaller brands uh, or smaller sellers the ability to do creative like you can make a creative video out of nothing, nothing, sorry for zero or euro. So you're starting from a campaign or having a creative with a professional crew could you know cost between anything between 20,000 which would be pretty cheap to 100,000. Well tomorrow is zero euro. So it's flattening the space for everyone. So okay now small brands can compete which I've always said and from early on Amazon is the biggest opportunity actually for smaller plays for the bigger ones who have the means. It's flattening the world making um, uh competitors uh like compared easier and so on. So it's actually um, making it better for end consumers. But that means that the larger brands ah don't have it as easy as actually some of the smaller uh sellers. Um one thing which I was amazed is I see it as a move into Amazon as a service, a bit like uh SaaS, like you know service, uh cloud and all those things is um, Amazon is building different units which could be sold individually. So Amazon Advertising so you can use the technology of Amazon advertising on your own platform, on your own marketplace. Uh, so they started to sell that to you know, uh, multiple uh players in the market. So like they become a service, a platform, an advertising platform. Amazon Global Shipping, they you will be able to use containers uh from Amazon uh Amazon Shipping you'll be able to use Amazon trucks, fba, uh and you know sell multi um channel fulfillment which already exists. You can use the FBA stock to sell on other, like on Shopify. So this whole thing of Amazon shifting its uh, its system to be uh, like a service platform in the sense is for me uh, also a major change in our uh, industry and we'll see how it goes, if it gives opportunities, if it makes things simpler and if they are going to be able to be as good in every segment. I know from the past as an example, the containers for example coming from China wasn't working as well as the rest of the services because probably it was uh, earlier on. But all those things for me that's um, uh, super exciting to see how that is going to evolve. Will Amazon be able to keep that pace at scale still and be successful in all those things? Because you're putting yourself at risk a bit of uh, failing in one or the other. So I think we've talked about lots uh, of different things. I had one before the closing question. Um, I think one thing I want to dive into is you talked about your counterparts from a Vasque, uh Europe. I know there's different uh, avast us uh teams and helping sellers in different capacities. Could you explain what your team in the US does and the other team uh in the US does maybe?

Speaker A: Absolutely, yeah, 100%. So our team currently we have two main offices within the the US we have our office based in Florida which is where I am at and we deal with global expansion. Anything that is regardless of where you're located. Obviously our main uh, or our sellers usually are from the Americas. Anywhere from the U.S. canada, Latin America, it doesn't really matter. It's usually from our content here and they're trying to expand into any other markets abroad, whether it be a uh, country in Europe, the uk, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, you name it. That is our main purpose. It's that expansion. The vat, this is the gsts, all the different tax names that we have around the world and then the New York office, what they deal with is the US sales tax aspect of E Commerce. So anybody doing the opposite, if you're from a different country or you're even based in the US and want somebody that can help you, that specializes in E Commerce. That's what our counterpart in the New York City office would, would do for, for your business. They basically function as your CPA and they can keep everything uh, running and making sure that you have all of the required registrations, the filings that are required within the US Then obviously we have those European offices and we even have our office in China that deals with anything in that side or that time zone of the world. Because what we're trying to accomplish is there are so many sellers all around the world that we cannot all fit into one time zone. So we have offices from the east coast and the US to service this area here to people in the UK in Spain, in France, in Italy, Germany that are able to help that second chunk of the world basically within those time zones. And then we have our China office that is also able to serve the east, so that we have a full coverage of anyone, whether they're trying to come from, let's say, Taiwan or Australia to the UK or the US and then also vice versa. I just had a meeting today with somebody that's trying to move their products from the US and enter the Australia market. So that is why we have such a big variety of offices. We all serve the same purpose at the end, which is helping with the expansion, finding solutions for it. But we're just trying to accommodate for time zones. We're trying to be able to really help so that you don't have to get accustomed to us or accommodate us. We want to accommodate you. Great.

Speaker B: So customer service at heart. Um, a final one on Avasque, again is there's been a big celebration in China. Uh, last week, lots, uh, of pictures were popped up on LinkedIn. Do you want to say a bit more about. What was it all about?

Speaker A: Yeah. So we were celebrating our anniversary over there. So it's a big milestone. As a company, we have been able to serve many, many sellers. And honestly, the biggest accomplishment is just how long these offices have been running and how. How blessed we are, how successful we have been. Because our success means that our sellers are being able to open these new markets, they're able to find success in these new places, and they continue to expand. Because it all starts with that first leap of faith in, let's say you're expanding into Europe and you pick that one country. And it shows that your decision now has paid off. So you're looking to further expand into newer markets. And that is the fact that our. Our office is now turning 10 over there, that they have this big event where they're celebrating just how much they have been able to not only accomplish, but help and serve is really what is exciting. And it's something for some of the newer offices and some of us in this side to really look forward to and to aim to really to accomplish. What I'm trying to. What I'm trying to say here is our goal with, let's say, the Florida office, which is probably the newest one at this point is to really replicate the level of service and the level of accomplishments uh, that some of these other offices are having so that we can properly serve our clients. That, that, that celebration is a testament to just the amount of effort that people like Melanie and Angelos have put into serving not only Amazon sellers, but like you said, e commerce sellers around the world.

Speaker B: And if I'm not mistaken they were. It um, was a birthday with 10 years anniversary of vast in China, right?

Speaker A: Correct.

Speaker B: Avast itself is 15 years old if I remember well, um, from our discussion. And like uh, we just um, are about to feast our 13th anniversary. So Avast started two years earlier than us. But like it's in the E commerce world a long, long time and like Avast is one of those people who've been a long time around. So maybe to close our discussion, um, we couldn't have a uh, maybe around what, what was most uh, impressive for you or how do you see the future a bit uh, going or like did you get any feeling about where things are going and uh, prospect ideas?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, I'm gonna piggyback off of what you said. I, it was really exciting seeing the speed at which Amazon is growing and it makes me excited for next year's accelerate because now that they're leveraging AI, now that they're going, like you said, it makes me think back to how when they came out with aws, with Amazon web services that now it's used basically for any kind of application. Now I see all of these other services like you mentioned, that they're going to slowly start working out the kinks and start rolling them out for any industry. So it's exciting to be in this position where we get to see it from basically its birth, its inception and now how it's going to grow through the next couple of years. So it's really, really, really a uh, very exciting place to be at because we get to see not only Amazon grow, but we get to see those sellers that are able to harness that and take the bull by the horns and run with it as fast as they can and how they grow by using this. So I guess my biggest takeaway or the big, the thing that impacted me the most is just the ability that we have with leveraging the tools that come out. Having that early adoption makes all the difference. So seeing how all of these services that Amazon is now providing, getting to understand them properly and starting implementing them within your business, I'm really, it just makes me wonder how much growth can happen from this September till next. For all the sellers that we met this year, where they're going to be at in a year's time, where Amazon is going to be at in a year's time and where you and I, we're going to, are going to be at in a year's time. Because our companies have to continue growing and adapting to try and follow Amazon space and try to adapt to the new needs that these sellers have because all these new services now are going to raise new questions, new service requirements, new needs that we may not have seen in the past. So it's a really cool uh, place to be. It's a really, really exciting moment to be completely on especially as a first time attendee. What about you? What I want to hear, what was or what excites you the most? What do you think can change the most in this next year?

Speaker B: Well it's uh, I think uh, we're very aligned and one of the key things you said is that the barrier which has been lowered like if in terms of strategy it means Amazon has made it much easier. And I uh, often say when I started working I was doing distribution and the barrier to entry. So market was a buyer. It could be you can get, you had a, like a Walmart buyer or you had a Carrefour uh, buyer or you have a boots buyer. Like you had a buyer who was the one who would decide the life of death of your products more or less. Amazon started and said no, no, no, you know what, I'll list every product. So the barrier to entry was lowered and was at a different stage and they're sort of lowering it lower and lower. And that thing in itself is exciting because that means it changes and it gives different um, depending on your size and your company DNA, let's say different uh challenges as a smaller medium seller or brand. The challenge is okay now you need to get going, you need to move, take advantage of those things, you know, spend the time a bit, learn, find the right partner or you know it's available but you still need to do something about it and you still have to spend time if you're on the larger scope of the uh, teams is that uh, potentially your competitor are uh, getting will get even more nimble and even stronger. So what do you do about it? How do you become more agile on yourself? Which is a total different uh, kind of challenge um, for a big beast for example. So for me it's to see how, how is, is this going to pan out like the big, big, big guys are going to be have to fight more and more and the little guys will have more and more tools. But will they take benefit of them? Will they, you know what will happen of that with alongside with a thing of Amazon evolving into a multi, multi service kind of uh, offering that indeed is like we'll see in one year. How, how has that reshaped maybe the market and maybe help smaller brands emerge and like Elf Beauty for example was a very big success in the US it was a Amazon only uh, or Dude Wipes for example which is very well known in the U.S. it's like small brands new uh, innovations like they just go and they make something their audience or the customers love. Boom. They're very successful. And I find it super exciting because then it sort of reshapes the way business is done and I think that's refreshing. It's a bit stressful especially for people who've got a business model and say I need to modify it. But as you said for us uh, who are living through that is like it's very exciting and it pushes us to be creative and as service providers also to see how we can help brands, sellers, uh, evolve in that space. That will be the few last sentences and few last words. Thank you very much Juan. It was great to be with you on the show. It's great to be have had that um, session of okay what we thought about the show and uh, I hope we'll bump into each other before accelerate 2026. In the meantime, take care and take care everyone and see you soon. Bye bye.

Speaker A: Thank you very much Rome. Have a good one.