Amazon’s Project Nile Restructure Is Rattling Third-Party Seller Programs

Something is shifting inside Amazon’s third-party seller organization, and it’s making some of the platform’s highest-volume merchants uneasy. Multiple sources familiar with internal operations at Amazon’s Marketplace organization describe a sweeping restructuring effort — internally codenamed Project Nile — that is allegedly reallocating headcount and resources away from seller-facing support teams and toward Amazon’s own first-party retail and advertising infrastructure. Ecommerce Times could not independently verify the codename, but three separate sources close to the matter confirmed the broad outlines of the reorganization.

The timing is notable. Amazon’s third-party marketplace now accounts for an estimated 62% of total units sold on the platform, according to publicly available data from the company’s most recent annual report. Any structural deprioritization of seller services — even a quiet one — would have outsized consequences for the hundreds of thousands of FBA and FBM operators who depend on Amazon’s Seller Central infrastructure to run their businesses.

What Is Project Nile and Why Are Sellers Nervous?

According to one source, a former senior manager in Amazon’s Selling Partner Services division who left the company in Q1 2026, the restructuring involves consolidating what were previously separate seller growth and account health teams into a unified “marketplace efficiency” unit. The practical effect, this source alleges, is that proactive seller outreach — historically handled by dedicated account managers for top-tier sellers — is being scaled back significantly in favor of automated tooling.

“The account manager role as sellers knew it is being hollowed out. What you’re getting now is a tiered bot system with a human escalation path that takes days, not hours. For a seller doing $5M a year, that’s an existential difference when a listing goes dark.” — former Amazon Selling Partner Services manager, speaking on condition of anonymity

The alleged changes reportedly dovetail with Amazon’s broader push to expand its AI-driven Seller Central automation suite, which the company publicly announced upgrades to in March 2026. But sellers who spoke to Ecommerce Times say the gap between the AI tooling’s capabilities and the complexity of real account issues remains significant.

Which Seller Tiers Are Most Affected?

Not all sellers are experiencing the same level of disruption. Sources suggest the reorganization is hitting mid-market sellers — those generating between $1M and $10M annually on the platform — particularly hard. Enterprise accounts enrolled in Amazon’s Strategic Account Services (SAS) program appear to retain dedicated human support, at least for now.

• SAS Core sellers ($10M+ annual revenue): Reportedly unaffected, with dedicated account managers and priority escalation paths still intact.
• Mid-market sellers ($1M–$10M): Allegedly experiencing longer response times, reduced proactive outreach, and more reliance on automated case resolution.
• Emerging sellers (under $1M): Already relying almost entirely on self-service tools; no reported change in experience, which sources note is itself telling — Amazon may be signaling where it sees growth leverage.
• Brand Registry participants: Sources say Brand Registry support queues have grown, with some sellers reporting 10-to-14-day resolution timelines for listing suppression issues that previously resolved in 48 hours.

Zack Franklin, a well-known Amazon consultant and founder of AMZ Advisers, reportedly told clients in a private Slack group earlier this month — screenshots of which were shared with Ecommerce Times — that he’s seen “a meaningful uptick” in escalation failures among his portfolio sellers since April. Franklin did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Is Amazon Quietly Shifting Leverage Toward Its Advertising Business?

Several sources allege that the restructuring isn’t just about cutting costs — it’s about funneling sellers more aggressively toward Amazon’s advertising products. The theory, which Ecommerce Times cannot confirm but which is circulating widely in seller communities, is that reduced organic support creates a dependency cycle: sellers whose listings underperform due to slower support response are more likely to increase PPC spend to compensate.

“When your organic rank tanks because a listing suppression took two weeks to fix, what do you do? You turn on Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands to cover the gap. Amazon knows this. The incentives aren’t subtle.” — eight-figure Amazon seller based in Austin, Texas, speaking anonymously

Amazon’s advertising revenue hit $56.2 billion in fiscal 2025, making it one of the company’s fastest-growing segments. Critics have long argued that the structural incentives within Amazon’s marketplace organization favor advertising-dependent growth over organic seller health — a tension that, if Project Nile is real, may now be intensifying.

Pacvue CEO Melissa Burdick, whose platform manages hundreds of millions in Amazon ad spend annually, declined to comment on the specific restructuring rumors. However, in a recent LinkedIn post — which several sources flagged to Ecommerce Times as contextually relevant — Burdick noted that “the cost to maintain organic visibility on Amazon has never been higher” and that brands need to treat paid and organic as “a single integrated system, not separate levers.”

How Are Third-Party Aggregators Responding?

The alleged support degradation is reportedly landing hardest on Amazon aggregators, who operate large multi-brand portfolios and are acutely sensitive to account health disruptions across dozens of ASINs simultaneously. Sources at two separate aggregator firms — neither of which would go on record — described internal escalations to Amazon’s partner teams that went unresolved for weeks.

The aggregator space is already under significant financial pressure heading into mid-2026. Thrasio, which emerged from bankruptcy in late 2024, is reportedly still rebuilding its operational infrastructure. SellerX, the Berlin-based aggregator, has reportedly reduced its Amazon-specific account management headcount internally, partly in anticipation of receiving less proactive support from Amazon itself. SellerX did not respond to a request for comment.

“We used to have a direct line. Now we’re in the same queue as a seller doing $200K a year. For a portfolio our size, that’s not a support model — that’s a liability.” — senior operations executive at a mid-tier Amazon aggregator, speaking anonymously

What Does This Mean for Buy Box Dynamics and Listing Health?

The downstream effects on Buy Box performance and listing health are where sellers say the rubber meets the road. Account health scores — which directly influence Buy Box eligibility and FBA storage prioritization — can deteriorate quickly when support cases stall. Several sellers described a pattern where automated enforcement actions, including listing suppressions flagged by Amazon’s AI compliance systems, are being issued faster than human review teams can adjudicate appeals.

• Listing suppression appeal timelines allegedly up 40–60% since Q1 2026, per seller-reported data compiled by the Amazon Seller Roundtable community.
• Buy Box loss incidents tied to account health score drops are reportedly up among Brand Registry sellers in categories including Home & Kitchen, Sports & Outdoors, and Pet Supplies.
• FBA reimbursement case resolution — already a chronic pain point — is reportedly slower, with some sellers describing 30-plus-day timelines for straightforward lost inventory claims.
• Automated ASIN removal notices, previously rare for established listings, are reportedly hitting more sellers with no prior violations.

Tools like Helium 10’s Alerts and the account health monitoring features inside Jungle Scout are reportedly seeing increased usage as sellers attempt to self-monitor what they previously relied on Amazon account managers to flag proactively.

Will Amazon Address the Seller Backlash Publicly?

Amazon has not issued any public statement regarding the alleged Project Nile restructuring, and a spokesperson declined to comment on the record for this article beyond stating that the company “remains deeply committed to the success of our selling partners and continues to invest in tools and services that help them grow their businesses.”

That carefully worded non-denial is itself being parsed by the seller community. Several prominent voices in the Amazon seller ecosystem — including members of the Amazon Sellers Facebook groups with combined membership exceeding 400,000 — are treating the lack of denial as confirmation that something structural is shifting.

Whether Project Nile is a genuine internal reorganization, a cost-cutting measure dressed up in strategic language, or a signal that Amazon is accelerating its transition toward a fully automated seller relationship model, the operational implications for third-party sellers are real. Slower support, compressed organic visibility, and rising ad costs are squeezing margin at precisely the moment when sellers are already absorbing higher FBA fee structures introduced in January 2026.

For now, sellers are being advised by consultants to double down on documentation, maintain meticulous account health logs, and — perhaps most critically — reduce dependency on any single platform for revenue. The oldest advice in multichannel commerce may be the most relevant right now: don’t build your house on someone else’s land.