⚡AI Visual Tools At Your Disposal. Chargebacks Just Got Smarter. And, Q2 Inventory Decides Your Summer.

Hello there,

Welcome back to Buy&Beyond — where we cut through AI hype with real-world feedback and help you make smarter operational decisions.

If you're wondering which AI visual tools work, how to plan inventory when you're already in the middle of spring demand, and what delivery failures have to do with chargebacks, this edition gives you answers.

This month, three fundamental shifts redefined how commerce works:

AI visual production went from $5,000 to $0 (almost).  Google's Pomelli, Veo, and Asset Studio stack now handles product photography, video animation, and ad creative generation for free — but merchant feedback reveals which features actually deliver and which ones fall short.

Delivery failures are causing chargebacks. With 18% of consumers filing disputes over late or missing orders, the gap between shipping performance and dispute prevention just got a solution.

Q2 inventory planning determines your summer. The decisions you make about stock levels, supplier timing, and shipping cost reality right now will either enable growth or create stockouts during Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Prime Day.

🚀 Let's break it down.

This edition of Buy&Beyond is brought to you by LateShipment.com

🤖 AI Visual Production: What's Actually Working

Real merchant feedback on Pomelli, Veo, and the free tools changing product photography.

Between October 2025 and February 2026, Google quietly assembled an end-to-end visual production stack that costs significantly lesser. Professional product shoots typically run $500-$5,000. Google's Pomelli Photoshoot, Veo Animate, and Asset Studio integration just made that cost structure obsolete — but only if the tools actually work.

Pomelli Photoshoot (launched Feb 19, 2026)

Transforms smartphone product photos into studio-quality marketing images using Google's Nano Banana 2 model. Upload a messy kitchen-table shot, get professional studio backgrounds, floating product displays, lifestyle scenes, and "in-use" shots with AI-generated models.

According to multiple reviews and testing, Photoshoot delivers "70% usable on first generation" with the remaining 30% requiring minor edits. One merchant reported finishing 10 product descriptions before their second coffee using Pomelli-generated imagery. The consensus: it's a "powerful accelerator, not autopilot." Users report needing 10-15 minutes of Business DNA refinement for best results.

Some generations feel "template-influenced rather than genuinely brand-specific," particularly for brands with minimal or inconsistent websites. The February 2026 update improved this significantly, but it still happens. This isn't a replacement for strategy. It's an accelerator for faster creative testing cycles for e-commerce brands launching products regularly who need consistent imagery across campaigns. According to testing data, Pomelli generates roughly 10 post variations in about 60 seconds — approximately 30-40% faster than typical Canva workflows.

Pomelli Animate (launched Jan 2026)

Transforms static product images into video animations using Veo 3.1 (Google DeepMind's video generation model). One-click conversion from static marketing assets to dynamic social media videos.

The feature "builds on Pomelli's core strength" by maintaining brand consistency through Business DNA. However, there is one critical limitation: you can only work on one campaign at a time before starting another. For marketers running multiple promotions simultaneously, this creates friction.

For small businesses without video budgets, this democratizes video marketing. For brands that previously couldn't compete on video creative quality, it's a game-changer.

 AI Visual Tools in Enterprise Testing

Authentic Brands Group (ABG), using Google's AI tools including Veo within their proprietary Authentic Intelligence platform (built on Google Cloud's Vertex AI and Gemini), reported up to 60% higher ROAS for Reebok ad creative versus traditional product imagery in testing announced at NRF 2026 (January 11, 2026).

This isn't just about cost savings — it's about creative testing velocity. The brands winning with these tools aren't replacing their entire creative process; they're using AI to generate 10-15 variations quickly, then investing human creativity in the top performers.

 What merchants should do now:

1/   Tools like Pomelli let you generate on-brand visuals that match your website aesthetic automatically. Instead of generic carrier tracking pages, you can create branded post-purchase experiences using AI-generated product imagery and consistent brand DNA.

2/   Start with social media posts or email headers before moving to high-value ad creative. Get comfortable with the Business DNA refinement process.

3/  The 70% usable rate means you still need that final 30% of human judgment. AI accelerates; humans finalize.

4/  Generate 15 variations in an hour, run them as ads, double down on winners. This is where AI ROI compounds.

The honest assessment: These tools won't replace professional photographers for hero product shots or brand campaign imagery. But for everyday marketing assets — social posts, email banners, secondary product angles, tracking page visuals — they're genuinely useful and actually free. As of March 9, 2026, Pomelli expanded from 4 countries to over 170, making it globally accessible during beta.

The limitation nobody mentions: No direct publishing. You download assets and manually upload to each platform. There's no scheduling, no calendar view, no native platform integration. For high-volume content creators, pair Pomelli with tools like Buffer or Hootsuite.

🤝 New Partnership: Solving the Delivery-to-Dispute Problem

Why Chargeback.io and LateShipment just partnered to close the gap between shipping failures and payment disputes.

Delivery issues are one of the biggest hidden causes of chargebacks. When orders arrive late, go missing, or show up damaged, the fallout includes higher support volume, customer churn, refunds, and dispute risk.

The partnership announced March 25, 2026

We're excited to announce our partnership with Chargeback.io, combining two powerful capabilities designed to help merchants protect revenue and deliver better customer experiences.

Delivery issues and chargebacks often go hand‑in‑hand — when one happens, the other isn't far behind. By addressing both, we're enabling eCommerce brands to reduce preventable losses, recover at-risk revenue, and strengthen customer trust.

LateShipment.com identifies orders at risk of chargebacks and notifies merchants with predictive alerts, and also automatically recovers shipping refunds for carrier service failures such as package delays, damage or loss. Chargeback.io prevents and fights disputes.

This collaboration marks a big step toward a more complete post‑purchase protection suite for modern merchants, protect revenue that previously leaked through both operational and financial cracks. Read more here.

📦  Q2 Inventory Reality: What Merchants Need to Get Right Before June

Spring is live. Summer is coming. Here's what the next 90 days actually demand.

Most inventory planning guides are written for January. But the merchants who outperform in Q2 are the ones who treat April as a second planning window — not a time to coast on whatever Q1 decisions they made. Spring demand is live. Summer prep starts now. And shipping costs just got meaningfully more expensive. Here's what to focus on.

The Q2 demand calendar merchants are working against:

The next 90 days have more revenue-critical windows than any other quarter. Mother's Day (May 11) is the third-highest revenue event in US retail. It front-loads demand into late April and early May, which means the shipping volume spike hits before most brands have adjusted their carrier performance expectations. Father's Day (June 15) follows immediately after. And Prime Day — historically July, but Bloomberg has reported Amazon may move it to June this year — is now a genuine Q2 planning variable for the first time.

Your Amazon Big Spring Sale data is a planning signal

The Big Spring Sale just wrapped (March 25-31). If you ran deals, you now have the clearest directional data you'll get before summer. Which SKUs moved fastest? Which ran out? Which sat with no movement?

That data tells you exactly which products deserve higher buffer stock for Mother's Day and Prime Day, and which ones to run lean on. Don't let it sit in a spreadsheet. Act on it within the next two weeks, while supplier lead times can still work in your favor.

Shipping costs are running 8-12% higher than last year

The headline from UPS and FedEx was a 5.9% General Rate Increase for 2026. The reality, once residential surcharges, dimensional weight changes, and accessorial fees are factored in, lands closer to 8-12% for most e-commerce shippers. Residential delivery surcharges alone jumped 6-8%, and new cubic volume thresholds on both carriers mean packages that previously escaped oversize fees are now getting hit.

For Q2, this matters in two ways. First, your shipping cost per order is higher than your Q1 budget assumed, which directly erodes margins on spring promotions. Second, most brands are being overbilled on carrier invoices and don't know it — surcharge errors and missed service failure refunds don't announce themselves.

The delivery promise problem gets more expensive in Q2

Spring peak puts pressure on delivery windows in a way that's different from holiday season. The stakes are emotional. Mother's Day gifts that arrive late don't just generate a refund request — they generate a dispute and a lost customer. With 18% of chargebacks tied to late or missing deliveries, a fulfillment problem in May is a finance problem in June.

The brands managing this well aren't waiting for customers to file tickets. They're monitoring shipments in real time, catching exceptions before customers notice, and using tracking touchpoints proactively — both to head off complaints and to build brand experience at a moment when attention is high. A branded tracking page showing a customer their Mother's Day order is on time builds more loyalty than any post-purchase email campaign.

Q2 inventory decisions to act on this week

1. Act now before supplier lead times create a gap.

2. A stockout in early May will be difficult to recover from.

3. Post-CNY production has stabilized, but freight costs remain elevated through April.

4. Lock in pricing based on actual landed shipping costs, not just the 5.9% GRI headline.

5. Service failure refunds have a limited claim window, this is recoverable revenue, don’t miss it.

👋 Before you go…

April 2026 is where Q2 either compounds or unravels. AI visual tools are genuinely useful if you know their limitations. The inventory decisions you make this week determine your summer. And delivery failures don't have to become payment disputes.

Got questions about implementing AI tools, planning your Q2 inventory, or preventing delivery-related chargebacks? Hit reply. Your challenges shape what we cover.

If you're still manually creating product photos, guessing on inventory levels, or watching delivery issues turn into chargebacks — these are the tools built to solve exactly those problems.

PS: If you're still treating post-purchase as a cost center instead of a revenue engine or manually chasing shipping refunds, this is the agentic post-purchase platform you need.

🔜 Next Up in Buy&Beyond

We're digging into the number behind the number: why the 5.9% carrier GRI is actually costing most e-commerce brands 8-12% more this year, what's hiding in your carrier invoices, and how to recover it before the claim windows close. Plus: the delivery execution playbook for Mother's Day — your highest emotional-stakes shipping window of the year — and what to do in April and May to be Prime Day-ready. If Amazon moves it to June, you have less runway than you think.

xoxo