For an Amazon-primary business, 36 cents of every revenue dollar goes to platform costs before anything else gets paid.

Out of our research on 37 ecommerce businesses, the ones we categorized as thriving had built themselves a multichannel structure.

Their all-in marketplace costs landed around 16% of revenue. The businesses primarily on Amazon were running closer to 36%.

That’s not a small difference.

That’s a 20-point margin gap that determines how much you can spend on advertising, how much you can hold in cash reserves, how much you can pay yourself, and how fast you can grow.

It’s the Platform, Not You

It’s also a function of the platform, not anything you’re doing wrong.

Marketplace fees rise. Storage costs adjust. Ad rates move with demand.

That’s true for every seller on every platform.

It’s just more pronounced on Amazon because Amazon is doing more for you, and that service has a price.

This Isn’t About Leaving Amazon

I’m not telling you to leave Amazon. Most of the thriving businesses we studied haven’t left. They still sell there.

But they also sell somewhere else, where the cost structure is different and the customer relationship is theirs.

Here’s what I want you to think about.

If Amazon is your only channel, your business has one growth lever, and you don’t fully control it.

Pricing decisions, fee changes, and policy updates all happen to you rather than with you.

That’s the nature of selling on someone else’s platform.

Building a Second Channel

The owners I see breaking through aren’t the ones who walk away from Amazon.

They’re the ones who use Amazon for what it does well, and build a second channel for everything Amazon can’t do.

That looks different for every business. For some, it’s standing up a Shopify storefront and driving traffic through email and social.

For others, it’s a wholesale channel that doesn’t touch a marketplace at all.

For others still, it’s a small subscription program that builds direct customer relationships one buyer at a time.

The point isn’t which path you pick. The point is that you pick one.

See How Your Business Compares

If you’d like to see how healthy your ecommerce business is, reply “triple threat” to this email and I’ll send you our Special Report to see how you compare.

Then reach out and let’s chat about what your next business move could look like.

Cyndi