TWIMA Weekly — 2 Sep 2025

Trend of the Week

AI customer service agents become the new frontline

AI customer service agents are moving from pilots to production for online businesses. Klarna’s AI assistant handled two thirds of all customer service chats in its first month, 2.3 million conversations, matching human satisfaction, cutting repeat inquiries by 25 percent, and reducing resolution time to under two minutes from eleven. Klarna estimates a $40 million profit improvement in 2024 from the rollout (press release). Zendesk’s CX Trends 2025 finds 90 percent of CX leaders are already seeing ROI from AI, and companies are racing toward fully autonomous service. Consumers are warming up too, with 67 percent saying friendly, human like agents build trust. Google Trends shows rising interest in AI customer service over the past year.

Sources: Klarna press · Zendesk CX Trends 2025 · Google Trends

Today We Have For You

• Short, focused actions help stabilize rankings during Google’s August spam update, while deeper cleanup prevents repeat hits.
• AI crawling grows while referrals lag, update robots and analytics to protect performance and preserve conversion opportunities.
• USPS now requires six digit HS codes on international shipments, add codes to products and shipping presets to avoid delays.
• Shopify now bakes carriers, labels, bulk processing, and DDP tools into admin, reducing complexity and speeding fulfillment.
• Amazon is moving to star only seller feedback, build alternate signals and protect conversion and Buy Box fundamentals.
• Amazon ad revenue just hit a record share, plan Q4 placements and guardrails to grow without sacrificing profitability.

News Articles

Spam update shakes rankings, here is the playbook

Google confirmed an August 2025 spam update that began August 26, US Pacific time, with a rollout expected to take weeks. The update applies globally and to all languages. Within 24 hours, third party rank volatility tools and SEO chatter reported noticeable movement. Some sites saw sharp drops, others brief spikes, suggesting spam pattern detection tightening rather than broad quality re ranking.

What to do now is practical and focused. Audit thin, auto generated, or templated pages that target the same or near duplicate intent. De index or consolidate doorway like pages and prune expired programmatic sections. Sample server logs to see if affected sections are over crawled yet under clicked. In Google Search Console, compare impressions and clicks week over week for impacted directories and templates, and watch Discover traffic, which often swings during spam updates. Avoid knee jerk disavow efforts unless there is a clear pattern of manipulative links. Prioritize content cleanup, internal linking that favors canonical pages, and fixing UX issues like intrusive ads.

If volatility is limited to a narrow template, ship a contained fix, then monitor over 72 hours. If you see sitewide swings, check for outdated structured data, hidden ad widgets, and soft 404 clusters that can look like spammy thin content.

Why it matters: Swift remediation can protect revenue during a spam focused update while avoiding unnecessary risk.

Sources: Google Status incident · Search Status history · SERoundtable

AI crawls rise while clicks fall, adjust now

Cloudflare Radar data shows AI and search crawling surged through spring 2025, up 32 percent year over year in April and 24 percent in June, before slowing to four percent in July. Training now accounts for about eighty percent of AI bot activity. GPTBot and ClaudeBot expanded share, while some legacy crawlers declined. Referral traffic is not keeping pace. For news sites, Google referrals in March were roughly nine percent lower than January, with April down fifteen percent.

A new crawl to click ratio highlights the imbalance. Anthropic sent one visitor for roughly 38,000 crawled pages in July. Perplexity’s ratio worsened through 2025, while OpenAI improved slightly but still crawls far more than it refers. Meanwhile, a US survey indicates broader consumer behavior shifts, with Google’s share of general information searches slipping to about 66.9 percent and ChatGPT use nearly tripling to 12.5 percent since February.

Take steps to protect content value and data quality. Segment analytics to label AI and verified bots, then exclude them from human traffic dashboards. Tighten robots.txt for training focused user agents where allowed, consider rate limiting patterns that stress infrastructure, and verify bot IPs against published ranges. For content that must be crawled for search, ensure canonical paths and block duplicative parameterized URLs. Consider adding citations prompts and tracking when AI assistants send traffic, then test summary friendly formats that still require click through for depth.

Why it matters: The traffic pipeline is changing, you need clear bot controls and new visibility playbooks.

Sources: Cloudflare Radar · AI crawler traffic · Search Engine Land

Six digit HS codes now mandatory for USPS exports

Beginning September 1, USPS requires a six digit Harmonized System code on customs declarations for international commercial shipments. USPS will not block label creation if the field is blank, but destination customs can hold or return packages, apply incorrect duties, or contact recipients for missing data. The change aligns with Universal Postal Union and World Customs Organization standards and mirrors a broader push by destination countries and carriers to enforce HS codes.

For sellers, the simplest path is to make HS codes part of the product record, not a last minute task. Map every SKU to a six digit code using a trusted lookup, record Country of Origin, and include both in your shipping presets. Train fulfillment to verify codes at label time and add checks to reject shipments that lack a code. If a package is held, confirm the reason, provide the correct code, and submit an amendment through your carrier.

Related updates are appearing across platforms. Shopify now supports duties pre paid Canada Post labels to the US, and advises merchants to bulk add HS codes and enable duty collection for compliant DDP workflows. Expect more marketplaces and tools to hard require HS data in coming weeks.

Why it matters: Adding HS codes now prevents holds, protects delivery speed, and avoids costly manual fixes later.

Sources: Stamps.com · EcommerceBytes · Shopify Changelog

Shopify turns shipping into a built in superpower

Shopify is rolling out built in fulfillment capabilities designed to replace multiple third party apps and carrier portals with one workflow in admin. Merchants can access major global carriers, buy labels at negotiated rates, bulk process up to 250 orders at once, and use smart defaults for packaging and pick lists. International shipping improves with duties and taxes collection at checkout and the ability to purchase Delivered Duty Paid labels from DHL without leaving Shopify. Labels include built in protection for eligible US merchants, and address validation reduces costly errors.

For growing brands, the change aims to convert shipping from a time sink into a sales lever. Automatic tracking updates reduce support burden, exchange and store credit flows preserve revenue on returns, and a unified view of performance extends to select third party fulfillment partners if you outsource. The promise is less tab switching, faster pick pack ship, and fewer integration points to maintain.

Evaluate ROI against your current stack. For small catalogs with simple rules, consolidating in Shopify may cut software costs and training time. For complex operations, test bulk workflows, carrier coverage, and return flows before switching, and keep an eye on edge cases like multi origin routing and custom packaging.

Why it matters: Streamlining fulfillment can free hours weekly and lift conversion by meeting delivery promises more consistently.

Sources: Shopify Newsroom · Shopify Changelog

Star only seller feedback forces new playbook

Amazon notified sellers that customers can now leave star only seller feedback with optional text. The change starts August 4 and aims to increase feedback volume by lowering friction. Marketplace Pulse notes this removes context sellers rely on to appeal feedback caused by Amazon handled delivery or customer service issues, which is common for Fulfillment by Amazon orders. Seller satisfaction rates have already declined globally since 2020, making the signal weaker and noisier just as expectations rise.

Practical response focuses on signals you can still influence. Double down on product reviews and content clarity, since those are visible at the point of purchase. Where permitted, use buyer messaging to clarify issues and resolve preventable negatives. Build an internal tagging workflow that classifies negative events by root cause, delivery, packaging, listing clarity, item defect, so you can spot and fix recurring issues without relying on Amazon’s written feedback. Monitor account health metrics and Buy Box share, which are more material than seller feedback for most listings.

Expect more ratings, less insight. Treat star only trends as a coarse health check, and rely on granular data from returns reasons, customer messages, and product reviews to drive action.

Why it matters: Less context means you must manufacture your own visibility, or risk chasing phantom problems.

Sources: Marketplace Pulse · Jungle Scout 2025 Report

Amazon ads climb to record share of revenue

Amazon’s advertising business reached about $15.69 billion in Q2 2025, representing 9.36 percent of total company revenue, the highest share to date. Growth remains strong, about 22 percent year over year, and Amazon says its ad network now reaches more than 300 million in the US across Prime Video, Twitch, Fire TV, live sports, and third party sites. The push extends beyond search results into connected TV and off platform inventory, while search pages continue to add paid placements.

For sellers and brands, rising visibility costs are the tradeoff for scale. Plan Q4 with tighter incrementality tests and diversified placements. Anchor Sponsored Products for conversion harvesting, reserve Sponsored Brands and Display for category reach, and pilot off Amazon audiences where attribution fits your model. Match attribution windows to buying cycles, and model contribution to total sales, including halo on organic share. Maintain profit guardrails, given total fees can exceed half of revenue for some sellers, and shift bids quickly as CPMs spike during peak weeks.

Tie creative to intent. Use retail aware audiences, current catalog reviews, and seasonality in messaging, then monitor new to brand and branded search share to judge momentum.

Why it matters: Ads are the growth engine on Amazon, budgets need discipline to win without eroding margin.

Sources: Marketplace Pulse · Amazon IR

Hidden Gem Listing

Read All About It

• 🐞 Verify Google crawling is back to normal — Search Engine Land
• 🤖 Allow your own crawlers reliably on Shopify — Shopify Changelog
• 📈 See today’s data in Shopify Analytics presets — Shopify Changelog
• 📚 Stay compliant with eBay’s new regulatory guide — EcommerceBytes
• ⚠️ Prepare for Amazon variation theme removals in Q4 — EcommerceBytes

Meme of the Week

Branding Content Writing GIF on Tenor

Attribution: via Tenor

Alternative Subject Lines

• Spam update playbook to protect this week’s traffic
• AI crawls rise clicks lag here is how to respond
• USPS now requires HS codes do this before you ship
• Shopify builds shipping in save time and fees
• Amazon feedback shifts focus on signals that convert
• Amazon ads hit records plan Q4 without burning margin
• Stop thin pages from tanking rankings this week
• Protect analytics from AI bots and noise
• Add HS codes and keep parcels moving
• Faster fulfillment smarter ads stronger CX this week