Amazon adds pickup locations; enables seller tool with next-gen AI
Amazon has expanded its order pickup locations, upgraded its artificial intelligence solution for sellers and is now offering coast-to-coast rail inventory fulfillment.
The company said it now offers nearly 30,000 pickup locations across the U.S. Customers can choose from a range of options including Amazon Lockers, Whole Foods Market, and other participating locations nationwide. (The locations let customers have eligible orders delivered to a spot outside their home.)
Amazon said that its customers are on track to collect more than 100 million packages from pickup locations across the U.S. this year, with most having access to at least one of our pickup locations within five miles of their home.
“We want customers to be able to get their Amazon packages in the way that works best for them,” said Viraj Chatterjee, VP of Amazon transportation. “We’re thrilled to have a pickup network that meets customers where they are, whether that’s near home, work, school, or somewhere in between.”
Seller Assistant
In other, Amazon has announced the next evolution of its Seller Assistant, which was Initially released in 2023 to provide third-party sellers with generative AI capabilities. Amazon subsequently modified the tool to include agentic AI functionality in September 2025 It is now equipping it with new next-gen AI features based on its Amazon Bedrock proprietary AI platform and leveraging the Anthropic Claude AI solution.
[READ MORE: Amazon adds agentic AI to seller listing tool]
•When a seller asks Seller Assistant how a product is performing, the solution can identify a competitive signal, connect it to an advertising or cross-promotion opportunity, assess potential improvements to a listing, and draft a recommendation.
•Seller Assistant now carries persistent memory of each seller's pricing patterns, inventory cycles and growth goals. That memory follows sellers wherever they work so the context is never lost when they switch between tools. Seller Assistant learns a seller’s business over time, delivering personalized recommendations designed to improve with every interaction.
Every suggestion comes with reasoning behind it, so sellers can evaluate, adjust, or explore alternatives. When sellers want to visualize their data and interact with it directly, they have access to a dynamic visual workspace where they can model scenarios, compare pricing strategies, and diagnose campaign performance using live data, all through natural conversation.
•Custom automated workflows run continuously, monitoring conditions, interpreting changes and responding dynamically, even when the seller isn’t logged in to Seller Central. Sellers describe what they need in plain language, set guardrails, and the workflow will perform its designated task. Every action is logged with a complete audit trail.
•Prebuilt templates monitor account health, summarize orders, analyze pricing trends, and find product expansion opportunities. Sellers can also build custom workflows from scratch. For any workflow, prebuilt or custom, sellers choose whether it just surfaces recommendations or takes actions on their behalf. When it takes actions, sellers have control, reviewing and approving them before they're carried out.
•A plugin in the Amazon Quick AI assistant and in beta with Claude lets users integrate Seller Assistant reasoning, recommendations, and ability to take action into other AI tools. The plugin connects a seller’s Amazon data, including listing contributions, real-time performance metrics, inventory levels and sales analytics, directly to their preferred AI agent, which can act on it the same way Seller Assistant does inside Seller Central.
The selling partner plugin is now available in beta for sellers in Amazon's U.S. stores, with international expansion to follow. Additionally, every primary account holder globally can sign up for a free 12-month Amazon Quick Plus subscription, available through December 31, 2026. Primary account holders can also designate two additional co-workers to receive a free year of Quick Plus at no extra cost.
Standard Ocean Express
According to a recent posting on the Amazon Seller Central hub, third-party sellers can now ship inventory to East Coast fulfillment centers from the Los Angeles port with Standard Ocean Express, a new speed option for Seller Managed Placement (SMP) bookings.
Amazon Global Logistics Standard Ocean Express routes third-party shipments via the Los Angeles port with direct rail to Amazon’s East Coast fulfillment centers. The retailer says this provides improved transit times compared to standard routing, reducing out-of-stock risk during peak demand.
Licensed brokers and certified specialists handle the process end-to-end, and transparent ocean rates are displayed at the point of booking with estimated delivery windows. No new registration or documentation is required for booking.
