Picture this. You and a friend each own a consumer brand. You are both doing 2 million dollars in EBITDA. You are both exhausted. On paper, you look pretty similar.

The only real difference:

• Your brand gets about 90 percent of revenue from Amazon.

• Your friend gets around 55 percent from Amazon, 25 percent from DTC, and the rest from other marketplaces and retail.

When it is time to sell, you are looking at a 3 to 3.5x multiple. Your friend is having conversations at 5x and above. Same profit, different story, very different check.

That is what “Amazon-dependent brands sell for less” means in real life. This post is about why that happens and what to do about it, especially if you are starting to think about an exit in the next 2 to 3 years.

What “Amazon-dependent” really means

Being big on Amazon is not the issue. Amazon is still where customers start a huge percentage of their shopping journeys. It is a fantastic channel.

Amazon dependence is when the channel basically owns you.

In practice it looks like:

• 80 to 90 percent of your revenue coming from Amazon

• Amazon controlling demand, discoverability, and your margin structure

• No other channel meaningful enough to catch you if Amazon moves the goalposts

From the inside, that can feel fine:

• Sales are growing

• EBITDA looks strong

• You have great reviews

• Ads are “working”

From the outside, a buyer sees a single point of failure.

One platform controls almost everything that matters. One algorithm change, one policy flag, one round of fee changes, and the whole P&L can look different next quarter.

That is why Amazon-dependent brands get haircut multiples, even when the profit is there.

Amazon’s incentives are not your incentives

Let’s be blunt for a second.

Amazon’s job is to make money for Amazon. Not for you. Not for whoever buys you.

Over the last few years, more and more of Amazon’s profit has come from third party seller services and ads – FBA fees, storage, surcharges, and Sponsored ads – rather than simple retail margin.

That shows up in a few ways that quietly crush brand value.

The slow fee ratchet

No one fee hike kills you. The stack does.

You have probably felt this:

• FBA base fees inch up

• Storage and aged inventory fees increase

• New low inventory or peak surcharges appear

• Placement, logistics and “program” fees keep getting added

Each change might cost you one or two points of margin. Over a few years, many mature brands end up here:

• 25 to 30 percent of topline going to fees

• Another 10 to 15 percent going to ads just to hold share

A buyer can see that in seconds when they look at your financials. They know your cost structure is being set by someone you cannot negotiate with.

Ads that feel like rent

On a mature account, Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands often feel less like a growth engine and more like rent.

You pay if you want to show up for category terms. Your competitors pay to take that space away. Amazon gets paid either way.

If you dial back spend, it is not just growth that slows. You can lose organic ranking and have to pay more later to recover.

Real brand equity is supposed to work the opposite way. The more people know and want you, the less you should have to pay for every single click.

This is why we push profit-first planning in our Amazon marketing strategy for 2025. Buyers want to see that Amazon ads are fuel for a healthy business, not life support.

The Buy Box treats you like a commodity

The Buy Box is supposed to reward the “best” offer. In reality that means:

• In stock

• Fast shipping

• Good performance metrics

• Competitive price

Your brand story is not in that list.

If there are resellers, near clones or private label lookalikes in your niche, the Buy Box treats all of you as interchangeable. Buyers know that, which is why Amazon-only businesses often get treated as “product positions” rather than brand positions.

How Amazon trains shoppers not to care about your brand

Set the fees aside for a moment and look at the shopping experience.

Amazon’s UI is designed to make products interchangeable.

• Search results stack your listing next to private label, ads and “similar” items

• Your product page is covered in Sponsored and “Customers also bought” suggestions

• New entrants can copy your look, your features and even parts of your copy in weeks

For shoppers, the logic is simple:

“I need X. Which of these has the best price, Prime, and reviews today?”

They do not necessarily remember whether they chose you last time. Many do not care.

Research keeps finding the same pattern. A big chunk of Amazon shoppers are totally fine buying from a brand they have never heard of, as long as price and reviews look solid.

On your side of the screen, it looks like:

• Growing revenue

• More reviews

• Decent repeat purchases within Amazon

Off Amazon, it looks like:

• No email list

• No SMS list

• Weak or non-existent DTC

• Very little branded search outside Amazon

If the only “relationship” you have with your buyer is a line in Seller Central and a string of anonymized orders, you do not really own a brand. You own a successful listing.

And buyers pay very differently for listings versus brands.

Algorithm and fee roulette: the multiple killer

If you have run an Amazon business for more than a year, you already know this part in your gut.

Amazon is volatile.

• Search is winner take most. Positions 1 to 3 soak up a huge share of clicks. Dropping from 3 to 8 on a head term can cut your organic sales by 40 to 60 percent.

• Algorithm updates roll out quietly. You find out something changed when your sessions chart starts sliding and your CPCs spike.

• Policy reviews can feel random. A wording choice or image that was fine for years suddenly triggers a takedown or suppression.

• Fee changes land on a fixed calendar, whether your category can absorb them or not.

From an acquirer’s point of view, that means:

• Your trailing twelve months look solid

• Your forward twelve months are largely at the mercy of one company’s decisions

You can see where this goes. Few buyers are going to pay “healthy omnichannel brand” multiples for that level of platform risk.

The flip side is more hopeful: if you show that Amazon is one strong pillar instead of the whole house, your multiple can expand without changing your EBITDA all that much.

So what actually makes an Amazon brand valuable?

Buyers do not hate Amazon. Many are built around it. They just pay up for certain patterns.

Here is what they want to see under the hood.

1. Amazon that is strong but not fragile

You still need a tight Amazon operation:

• Clean account health

• Listings and Brand Stores that convert

• Amazon PPC that is disciplined instead of “set it and forget it”

• Inventory that is under control

They just do not want to see Amazon “maxed out” at the expense of everything else. Amazon should look like a well run channel, not the only place the business works.

2. Evidence that people want your brand, not just your ASIN

Buyers lean in when they see:

• Branded search volume outside Amazon

• A DTC store that is doing real revenue, not just test orders

• Email and SMS lists with real engagement

• Repeat purchase, not just one and done deals

That tells them “if Amazon sneezes, this brand has other ways to talk to its customers.”

3. Real channel diversification

This does not mean being everywhere. It means having at least one other channel you can point to and say “this works, here is how.”

That might be:

• Walmart or another marketplace with meaningful sales

• A Shopify store big enough to calculate LTV and payback

• Retail or wholesale accounts that are ramping, not just samples in a few stores

The exact mix is less important than the fact that revenue is not sitting on one platform-shaped Jenga block.

4. A creative and brand system, not just assets

Logos and nice packaging are table stakes. Buyers get more excited when they see a system:

• Clear positioning and story that shows up everywhere

• Performance creative that works across Amazon, Meta, TikTok, retail media and out of home

• Processes for testing and iterating creative, not just one hero shoot every few years

This is where Darkroom lives day to day. If your “brand” only exists in a flat PDP, it is very hard to ask for a brand multiple.

A 3 phase plan to be less Amazon dependent without blowing it up

You do not need to nuke Amazon to fix Amazon dependence.

You need to:

• Make Amazon healthier

• Build a second and third growth leg

• Tie it together into a story a buyer believes

Here is a simple three phase version of that.

Phase 1: Stabilize and professionalize Amazon (months 0 to 6)

First, stop the bleeding.

This looks like:

• Cleaning up listings, Brand Store, images and on page copy

• Fixing obvious account health risks and preventing surprise suspensions

• Getting honest about unit economics, including all fees and ad spend

On the growth side, you move away from chasing pretty ACoS screenshots and toward profit-first planning. That is the whole point of our Amazon PPC guide and conversion rate optimization playbook.

The job in this phase is simple: turn Amazon into a predictable, profitable channel again so it can help fund what comes next.

Phase 2: Prove one non Amazon growth engine (months 6 to 18)

Next, you give the business a second leg.

There are two common paths:

Marketplace led.
If your category is already search heavy and marketplace native, you might start with Walmart or another marketplace. You cherry pick SKUs that are likely to win, reuse what you have learned on Amazon, and avoid clogging a new channel with your entire catalog.

Owned-channel led.
If your brand photographs well, has a clear story or leans into community, it often makes more sense to stand up or rebuild a Shopify store with:

• Email flows that feel human instead of generic

• SMS that adds value, not just discounts

• Meta and TikTok campaigns designed for profitable acquisition, not vanity traffic

This is where Darkroom’s broader growth marketing services come in. We like channels that talk to each other, not separate fiefdoms fighting for budget.

The goal for Phase 2 is proof, not perfection. You want one other channel that can spend money, acquire customers and produce profit at or near your Amazon unit economics.

Phase 3: Build the omnichannel engine and the exit story (months 18 to 24 and beyond)

Once:

• Amazon is stable and profitable

• One other channel is clearly working

  You can start operating like the brand buyers want to see.

Practically, that means:

• You have an omnichannel plan, not a collection of random experiments

• Creative, budget and offers are coordinated across Amazon, DTC, marketplaces, retail media and social

• Reporting shows how channels support each other instead of arguing over who “deserves” credit

The story you want to be able to tell an acquirer is something like:

“Amazon is 50 to 60 percent of revenue and very healthy. We acquire and retain customers directly through our own store and retention programs. We have proven revenue on other marketplaces and retail. If Amazon changes something, we feel it, but it does not define the entire business.”

Once you can say that with a straight face and a clean dashboard, you are no longer “Amazon dependent.” You are an omnichannel brand that uses Amazon as a pillar, not a crutch.

How much this alone can change what your brand is worth

Let’s come back to multiples, because that is usually what everyone secretly cares about.

Very roughly in the current market:

• Brands with 90 percent plus of revenue from Amazon often trade around 3.0 to 3.5x EBITDA

• Brands with 50 to 70 percent Amazon and real off Amazon channels often trade around 4.5 to 5.5x

• Well diversified omnichannel brands can command 5.5 to 6.5x and sometimes more

Back to the example from the intro:

• Brand A and Brand B both do 2 million dollars in EBITDA

• Brand A is 90 percent Amazon and sells for something like 6 to 7 million

• Brand B is roughly half Amazon with healthy DTC and marketplace revenue and sells for 10 to 12 million

Same profit. Different mix. A 4 to 6 million dollar gap.

That spread is the real “ROI” on doing the slow work now while you still own the upside.

Where Darkroom fits if Amazon is both your superpower and your anxiety

If you are reading this, you are probably in one of two camps:

• Amazon built your brand and now it scares you

• You are already trying to diversify, but it feels like you are juggling five businesses at once

Either way, the instinct is right. Channel concentration is a valuation problem, not just a marketing problem.

Darkroom steps in when you want someone to look at:

• Amazon and other marketplaces

• DTC and retention

• Paid social and TikTok Shop

• Retail media and creative production

as one connected growth engine, not four agencies fighting for credit.

For Amazon-heavy brands, our work usually looks like:

• Cleaning up the Amazon foundation so the channel is profitable and durable

• Designing and proving the next one or two channels that make sense for your category

• Building a creative and brand system that works across all of them

• Reporting that tells a story a buyer will actually pay for

If Amazon is your biggest blessing and your biggest fear at the same time, that is a good signal you should not keep solving this in isolation.

Book a call with Darkroom and we can walk through where you sit on the Amazon dependence spectrum, what a realistic 12 to 24 month plan looks like for your brand, and how to use the channels you already have to grow both revenue and the multiple on that revenue.

If you sell on Amazon or work with an Amazon marketing agency, your life is ruled by a handful of brutal numbers: search rank, click through rate, conversion rate, reviews, and how fast you adapt when those numbers slip.  

Meanwhile on TikTok, one 15 second video can wipe out your inventory, spike your branded search on Amazon, and leave you scrambling to figure out what just happened.

Those two worlds feel different, but under the hood they are cousins.

TikTok’s For You Page is a giant testing machine for what people actually care about. Amazon’s search results are a giant testing machine for what people actually buy. In both cases, relevance and performance decide who wins.  

If you treat TikTok as your creative lab and Amazon as your conversion engine, they can feed each other.

Let’s unpack how TikTok’s algorithm really works in 2025, and what that should change about how you grow on Amazon.

TikTok’s For You algorithm, in plain English

TikTok’s For You Page looks like magic, but it is a recommendation engine that is very good at pattern matching.

It mostly cares about three things:  

• What people do with a video

• What the video is about

• Who the viewer is

More specifically:

User interactions. How long someone watches, whether they replay, like, share, comment, follow, or tap “not interested.” Longer watch time and high engagement tell TikTok this is worth showing to more people.

Video information. Captions, on screen text, sounds, hashtags, and even what is visually in the frame. These help TikTok figure out which interest buckets the video belongs to.

User profile data. Language, location, device type and basic settings. These steer your video toward the people most likely to care.

TikTok quietly runs experiments. It shows your video to a small test audience. If that group watches and engages, the video gets promoted to a bigger ring. If they swipe away, your video stops getting distribution.

Two signals matter a lot: watch time and early engagement. High completion rates and strong reactions in the first few hours are the fuel TikTok’s algorithm runs on.  

Now think about Amazon. Amazon’s ranking system looks at things like:

• How often people click your product when it appears in search

• How much time they spend on your page

• Whether they add to cart or bounce

• How often they buy and how they review you  

Different surface, same underlying logic: Given this shopper and this moment, what product is most likely to satisfy them and make us money?

Once you see both platforms as ranking engines that reward engagement and outcomes, TikTok stops being “just social” and becomes a powerful input into your Amazon marketing strategy for 2025. 

Lesson 1: Engagement is ranking power on both TikTok and Amazon

On TikTok, a video with low watch time and little engagement dies quietly. A video that people watch to the end, replay, comment on and share gets escalated to bigger audiences. 

Amazon does something similar with your listings.

If shoppers consistently click your product from search, spend time with your images, bullets and A plus, add to cart and complete a purchase, Amazon’s algorithm treats your listing as a strong answer to that query and keeps pushing it higher. If people bounce back to search and buy something else, you slide.  

This is where TikTok thinking helps.

A strong TikTok video:

• Hooks viewers in the first seconds

• Tells a clear story without friction

• Shows proof that feels real

• Ends with a natural next step

Your Amazon listing should behave the same way.

The main image and title are your hook. They have to win the click in a crowded search results page. That means clarity and specificity, not generic “premium quality” language.

The first image and the first lines of your bullets are your opening story. Show the product in context and speak directly to the main problem you solve, not just repeat your brand name and pack size.

Your secondary images, video and A plus content are the proof. This is where you bring in use cases, comparisons, ingredients, lifestyle context and social proof. TikTok has trained shoppers to expect receipts, not just claims. Darkroom Agency+1

Your reviews and Q&A are the comment section. Answer questions crisply. Build processes to nudge happy buyers toward reviews. Treat that surface like living content that can either handle objections or create new ones. If you need a deeper framework for this, Darkroom’s Amazon conversion rate optimization playbook is a useful companion.  

On TikTok, boring or confusing content gets buried. On Amazon, it gets buried too, and it also costs you real money.

Lesson 2: Think in niches, not generic “viral”

TikTok is not one big audience. It is millions of overlapping micro communities: #BookTok, #CleanTok, #GymTok, #MomTok and countless others. The For You Page works because TikTok gets very good at matching videos to specific interest clusters. 

Most Amazon listings ignore that reality. A listing that reads “high quality, premium, great for everyone” is asking Amazon to guess who should care. That makes as much sense as posting a completely generic TikTok and hoping it lands. Instead, use TikTok to validate niche angles first.

Create short videos aimed at specific situations or identities:

• For nurses working night shifts

• For parents packing five lunches at 6 a.m.

• For renters with zero counter space

Watch which ones get higher watch time, saves and positive comments. TikTok’s algorithm is telling you where the energy is.

Then reflect that in your Amazon strategy:

• Use long tail keywords tied to those use cases, not just category terms

• Show those situations in your imagery and video

• Write bullets that speak to that specific person and moment

If “parents packing lunches” consistently wins on TikTok, your Amazon listing should scream “lunch solution” instead of “container.”

TikTok finds your niches. Amazon lets you monetize them at scale, if your listing speaks their language.

Lesson 3: Let TikTok be your creative R&D lab for Amazon

Good Amazon creative is expensive and slow to change. Good TikTok creative is relatively cheap and fast to test.

That makes TikTok an ideal R and D environment. You can try different hooks, value props, visual styles and proof angles. TikTok will quickly tell you which versions hold attention and drive comments and shares. That is exactly what its ranking logic is built to do: continuously A/B test your ideas on real people.  

The mistake is stopping there. Instead, take the winners and hard wire them into your Amazon ecosystem:

• Write your main image text and first bullet around the best performing TikTok hook

• Use the most persuasive TikTok framing as a headline in your A plus content

• Turn a high performing TikTok video into your listing video or Brand Store hero

• Bring those angles into your Sponsored Brands video and display creative

If you run off Amazon media, you can reuse those same proven hooks on Meta and in your TikTok ads campaigns too.  

In other words, TikTok tells you what story your market responds to. Amazon is where you let that story make you money.

Lesson 4: Micro influencers and UGC are your ranking partners

TikTok runs on creators.

Micro influencers and everyday users often outperform big names because their content feels real and the algorithm optimizes for engagement, not celebrity. 

As an Amazon seller, you have probably seen that when a product blows up on TikTok, your Amazon data reacts. Category rank climbs. Branded search volume increases. Conversion rate improves on your main ASIN.

The path between those events is not mystical. It is people seeing believable content and then choosing to buy in the storefront they trust most: Amazon.

Instead of waiting for lightning, treat TikTok creators and UGC as intentional extensions of your Amazon presence.

That looks like:

• Building a small bench of creators who can consistently produce TikTok native content around your products

• Giving them clear story angles and freedom to do it in their own voice

• Making sure they have trackable ways to send traffic to your Amazon listings or Brand Store

Then, when a piece of content hits, do not let it live and die on TikTok:

• Feature that video (or an edited version) on your Amazon listing and Brand Store

• Recut the footage into secondary images with on screen captions

• Pull lines from their content into your bullets or A plus modules

TikTok’s algorithm and audience have already voted on what feels compelling. Amazon’s shoppers are often the same people. Reuse what worked.

If you want to go deeper here, Darkroom’s TikTok UGC guide breaks down formats, briefs and testing models that slot neatly into this TikTok → Amazon loop.  

Lesson 5: Use TikTok Shop and external traffic to feed Amazon, not replace it

TikTok Shop has changed the game. Shoppers can now discover a product in a video, tap a tag, and buy without leaving the app. Global GMV is already in the tens of billions per year, and some Amazon sellers understandably worry that TikTok Shop will cannibalize their marketplace sales.  

You can choose to see TikTok Shop as competition, or as a staging ground.

It is an excellent place to test:

• New configurations and bundles

• Price points and offer structures

• Creative hooks tailored to impulse “see it, want it” behavior

When something proves itself in TikTok Shop, you are not guessing whether it will resonate. You can roll that bundle, price or angle into your Amazon catalog and advertising with higher confidence. For a deeper breakdown of this, Darkroom’s TikTok Shop playbook is worth a read.  

At the same time, Amazon’s algorithm likes external traffic that converts. Sending random low intent clicks from social is not helpful. Sending warm, pre sold shoppers directly from TikTok content to an optimized Amazon listing is a different story. Those sessions can contribute to stronger click-through, better conversion and eventually better organic rank.  

The healthiest way to think about it:

• TikTok and TikTok Shop are where you create demand and test creative

• Amazon is where you capture intent at scale and maximize lifetime value

Darkroom’s approach is to make those roles explicit, then design campaigns and creative that move smoothly between them instead of pitting them against each other. If you are building a broader retail media plan, our guide to retail media and Amazon advertising shows how TikTok fits into the bigger picture. 

How to turn this into a practical plan

You do not need a brand new team to act on this. You do need a sequence.

Here is a simple, realistic way to start:

1. Tighten your Amazon foundation first
Make sure your hero images, bullets, A plus, reviews and Brand Store are at least retail ready. TikTok will not save a fundamentally bad listing. If you want a clearer checklist, start with our article on what Amazon account specialists actually do. 

2. Pick one product and one angle to test on TikTok
Choose a hero ASIN with solid reviews and some momentum. Develop a few TikTok concepts around specific use cases or communities and post them over a few weeks. Let the platform tell you which angle wins.

3. Rebuild that listing around the winning idea
Update your Amazon creative and copy to reflect the top performing hook and proof points from TikTok. Think of it as upgrading your listing with live market research. Watch your click-through and conversion rates over the next month.

4. Add creators and small paid tests
Once you see a clear link between TikTok angles and Amazon performance, bring in creators and modest Spark Ads or in feed campaigns to amplify what is working. Point some of that traffic to Amazon, some to TikTok Shop, and measure the downstream impact. Darkroom’s TikTok ads guide can help you structure those early campaigns.  

5. Scale what the data supports
If the numbers pencil out, expand the model to more products, more creators and larger budgets. Always keep TikTok as the test kitchen and Amazon as the scaling surface.

That is the game: continuous learning on TikTok, compounding outcomes on Amazon.

Where Darkroom fits if you want to go beyond DIY

Most Amazon sellers can and should experiment with TikTok themselves at first. A founder with a phone and a decent product can learn a lot in a few weeks.

But there is a point where “getting scrappy” stops being a compliment and starts being a bottleneck.

That inflection point usually looks like:

• Amazon revenue is already in the mid seven figures or higher

• You are selling across Amazon, DTC and maybe retail

• TikTok spikes are clearly moving your sales, but you have no system around it

• You want TikTok Shop, TikTok ads, creators and Amazon all tied to one P&L, not four separate experiments

  
  

Darkroom steps in there.

We are a growth partner for consumer brands, not a narrow “Amazon PPC shop” or a pure “TikTok agency.” Our team combines brand and identity, digital products, creative production and growth marketing, so the people designing your TikTok creative, building your UGC systems and scaling your marketplace presence are all solving the same growth problem.  

For Amazon heavy brands, that means:

• Using TikTok and TikTok Shop as disciplined creative and demand labs

• Translating proven angles into Amazon listings, Brand Stores and ad campaigns

• Building creator and affiliate programs that feed both platforms without eroding margin

• Measuring how all of it moves your Amazon KPIs and your blended MER across channels

If you can feel that TikTok is affecting your Amazon business but you are not yet in control of that relationship, it is a good time to talk.

Book a call with Darkroom and we will help you sketch what a TikTok plus Amazon growth engine should look like for your category, margin structure and goals, so you can turn two opaque algorithms into one coherent advantage.