Every year, Shopifreaks publishes a great predictions series where the community shares their thoughts about the future of eCommerce. I’ve enjoyed following this tradition, and Paul — the creator of this amazing newsletter — has even featured my predictions in previous editions. This inspired me to finally write down one of my own predictions here on the GeekSeller blog.
Prediction 2026: Sellers will lose control of pricing
I believe we are getting very close to a tipping point.
Pricing today is chaotic, unpredictable, and extremely inefficient. In 2026, retailers will have no choice but to step in and change how pricing works for 3P sellers.
Right now the situation looks like this:
• Amazon, Walmart, and other marketplaces constantly compare prices with each other.
• They also provide built-in repricers for sellers.
• Many sellers use their own third-party repricers.
• Updates lag behind, rules conflict with each other, and everyone reacts to everyone else.
The result is a giant loop: prices jump up and down, repricers fight with each other, and buyers see inconsistent pricing throughout the day.
This is confusing for customers and expensive for retailers. Buy Box fights burn margin, price manipulation before holidays is common, and small technical delays can create big swings.
There is already a simple model that solves this: the 1P structure.
On the 1P side, Amazon and Walmart decide the final price shown to the buyer. They pay sellers the agreed cost and take full control of retail pricing. No wars, no loops, no chaos.
I believe marketplaces will bring a version of this model into 3P.
AI-driven pricing will likely be introduced, but for the AI to work properly, marketplaces will need full control. That means no external repricers, no competing rules, and no price wars. They want predictable pricing and a better take rate.
One logical question is: if sellers lose pricing control, how will marketplaces decide who receives the order?
This is where I think we will see “seller credit scores.”
Amazon, Walmart, and other platforms already score sellers in many ways: on-time shipping, cancellations, packaging quality, content quality, customer sentiment, responsiveness, and return behavior.
Today, every marketplace uses its own method. The next phase will be more unified scoring, and this score will become one of the main factors in routing orders.
Pricing becomes just one input.
Seller trust and performance become the priority.
We already see early signs of this direction. Walmart has a program called Walmart-funded incentives, which fixes situations where Walmart believes a buyer will convert at a lower price, but the seller cannot or does not want to drop their price. Walmart simply covers the difference. The goal is to show the buyer the most attractive price without depending on the seller’s repricer.
This type of model only works when the marketplace has more control over pricing.
I believe 2026 may be the year this shift begins.
