Here’s a question that forces most vendor teams to stop and think.
By Ant Finch · August 7, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Here’s a question that forces most vendor teams to stop and think.
Would you trade 2 points of net margin for +20% more sales?
Most people’s instinct is yes because growth is growth, right?
But run the maths on a typical vendor P&L and it’s rarely that simple.
If your net margin is 12%, giving up 2 points means every unit now earns a sixth less.
Your 20% extra volume has to do more than look good on a sales report..it has to recover what you just gave away.
Sometimes it does, but often it doesn’t.
Especially once the extra funding, promo support and ad spend that bought the growth gets layered on top.
The real kicker.. the 2 points rarely come back. The volume might but the terms don't.
I’m not saying don't make that deal.
Some of the best vendor decisions I’ve seen, lead and been involved with are margin based growth deals, structured and agreed deliberately.
The key word here is deliberately.
If you can’t put numbers on the trade, you’re not deciding, you're hoping.
Has your team ever actually run that calculation or does growth just win by default?
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🚀 I help Amazon vendors increase their margins by 5-20% in 90 days.