Selling on Amazon: What most small-business owners don’t consider

Farhan Huq

14th Apr 2025

Having worked with brand owners at every stage, we’ve been asked just about everything when it comes to selling on Amazon. Does Amazon steal my data? Why wouldn’t I just sell directly to customers? And the question we hear most often – will I actually make money on Amazon?

The answer is yes. Selling on Amazon works. We’ve seen it firsthand, time and time again. But success on Amazon – like any other sales channel – requires understanding its unique mechanics and rules. And just like any game, you need to know the rules before you can use them to your advantage. Here are a few key ones to get you started:

1. Winning the ‘Featured Offer’ is everything – 80 per cent of sales require you to be the best offer

a. You’ll notice with every listing on Amazon a yellow ‘Add to cart’ button and ‘Buy Now’ button in the ‘Featured Offer panel. These buttons are designed to feature Amazon’s choice of what they think is the ‘best offer’ to the customer.
b. The logic behind this buy box is largely secret, even to internal employees. However, we have experimented with this and we know the calculation looks something like this:
i. Price
ii. Delivery Speed (handling time + shipping time)
iii. Customer Reviews
iv. Account Health
c. What this means for you: Be smart about how you win the buy box, and monitor your status overtime.

2. Amazon is a logistics company as much as it is a marketplace

a. If there’s one thing drilled into us since Day 1 at Amazon, is that delivery speed is just as important (if not more important) than price.
b. This explains Amazon’s incredible investment (sometimes at a loss) into their delivery infrastructure.
c. Owning and operating every stage of the supply chain is their goal including getting products from suppliers to their warehouses, warehouses to customers, and customer returns.
d. What this means for you: Leveraging Amazon’s delivery infrastructure is the only way to succeed on Amazon. FBA, EasyShip, SEND etc.

3. The customer relationship is Amazon’s, not yours

a. Amazon does not freely give you customer data other than the minimum you need to handle customer orders, basic queries.
b. This means things like customer journey lifecycle monitoring, customer marketing etc are near impossible on Amazon.
c. However, we have seen some sophisticated retailers do some cool things to get closer to customers
i. Include personalised messaging into the packaged item (even in FBA). This could include things like ‘leaving reviews, QR code to website etc.
ii. Automated buyer seller messaging – send notes directly to customers using Amazon’s internal chat system
So, let’s circle back to the big questions we started with:

Will Amazon steal my data? No – but they do control the customer relationship, viewing them as their customers. The upside? These are customers you likely wouldn’t have reached otherwise.

Why wouldn’t I just sell directly to customers? Because Amazon gives you access to 8 million shoppers. How long – and how much – would it take to get that kind of exposure on your own?

If you understand the system and pull the right levers, you can definitely tame the Amazon beast.

This story was originally published on Inside Small Business.