Last week, I spent four days in Nashville at an ecommerce conference focused on AI and the future of selling. The message that kept coming up: the buying process has fundamentally changed.

Consumers are no longer starting their search on Amazon or Google. AI tools are increasingly the first touchpoint — and they’re making recommendations based on data, reviews, and signals that sellers can’t fully control.

What this means for ecommerce sellers: relying on a single channel is now a significant risk. Amazon sellers who built everything on one platform are discovering that AI-powered shopping assistants don’t default to Amazon the way search engines once did.

The sellers who are thriving are building demand across multiple channels, investing in brand recognition, and making sure their products show up wherever their customers are looking — not just where they used to look.

The fundamentals haven’t changed: great products, strong margins, good customer relationships. But where and how you reach customers is evolving fast. Planning for that is now a cash flow issue as much as a marketing one.