I’ve sat in hundreds of Amazon vendor meetings and the same margin issues come u
By Ant Finch · June 24, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I’ve sat in hundreds of Amazon vendor meetings and the same margin issues come up time and time again.
1️⃣ When you add all your costs, your real margin on Amazon is nearly always lower than you think. Calculate it carefully.
2️⃣ Every decision Amazon makes is driven by their margin position on your products. Understand their P&L, and you’ll understand why they do everything they do.
3️⃣ Coop is the least questioned cost in your terms. Most vendors treat it like a cost of entry. Strong vendors treat it like an investment and demand accountability for the return.
4️⃣ Chargebacks are lost margin with a root cause. File the dispute, but if the same deduction lands every month, the dispute process isn’t the answer. Always fix the issue.
5️⃣ ACOS is not a margin metric. A campaign can hit every advertising target set and still be killing profitability once you account for all costs.
6️⃣ Not every sku deserves to be on Amazon. Some products will never make money at Amazon’s cost and margin expectations. The sooner you know which ones, the less margin you'll lose defending them.
7️⃣ Price reductions are not a growth strategy. Every time you give Amazon a cost price reduction you are funding their margin improvement not yours.
8️⃣ AVN preparation is a margin exercise, not a relationship exercise.
9️⃣ Margin isn't lost in one big move. It slowly leaves with a hundred small decisions that individually felt fine, but nobody joins them all together until the year end review.
🔟 The businesses consistently winning on Amazon in 2026 aren’t just growing. They know exactly what they’re growing into and whether the margin is there to make it worth it.
What would you add?
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🚀 I help Amazon vendors increase their margins by 5-20% in 90 days.