Amazon to Remove Initial Featured Offer Eligibility Restrictions
Starting in July 2026, Amazon will gradually remove initial seller eligibility restrictions for the Featured Offer, while continuing to evaluate Featured Offer placement based on factors including price, delivery speed, and buyer experience.
What are the key facts?
- 1Launches in July 2026
- 2Phased rollout across global marketplaces
- 3Expected completion by the end of 2026
- 4Initial eligibility screening removed
What happened?
Amazon Seller Central announced updates to the Featured Offer eligibility requirements. According to the announcement, starting in July 2026, the platform plans to gradually remove the existing initial seller eligibility restrictions across global marketplaces, with the changes expected to be completed by the end of 2026. The rollout schedule will vary by marketplace, and sellers can check account- and product-related statuses in Amazon Seller Central.
Amazon said the current initial seller screening process no longer provides additional value to buyers, so the platform will remove this step. After the eligibility restrictions are removed, whether a product receives the Featured Offer will still be evaluated based on multiple buyer-experience-related factors, including product price, delivery speed, and the overall buyer experience. The announcement did not state that the Featured Offer would automatically be assigned to all sellers eligible to sell a product; Amazon will continue to select and display offers based on relevant metrics.
What does this mean for cross-border sellers?
With the initial Featured Offer threshold lowered, more sellers may compete directly for the same product, making price, delivery, and fulfillment performance more important. A common mistake is to interpret relaxed eligibility as a guaranteed Featured Offer; sellers with unchanged core metrics may still lose traffic. Highest priority this week: review the price, inventory, and delivery promise for each priority product.