>They already take 50%+ of our revenue for all expenses
As mentioned my revenue is far smaller, so I need larger margins. My total marketplace fees plus shipping spend in 2025 was 26% of revenue. My net margin was 28%, but the metric I focus on is margin on COGS; that was 60% in 2025 and 54% lifetime.
Hearing your account and that of another seller with close to seven figures revenue makes me think I should aim for smaller margins. Not as small as yours, but maybe 10% smaller.
>We also do B&M and website sales which have way less hassle or much lower expenses, but get nowhere near the traffic of Amazon, so that's why we deal with 'em...
My Walmart revenue equaled Amazon's in 2025.
I've thought about opening my own website. On the one hand my multichannel software already supports such, so it would be from that perspective just another marketplace. On the other hand, besides the additional cost and hassle, I keep coming back to how difficult it is to match the Amazons and Walmarts of the world in terms of customer reach.
My fees are high but my COGS are low -- they're typically <30%, but our typical unit pricing is <$30 so the FBA fees and base fees/unit sold hit hard.
We make ~30% before labor and net 10-20% after everything so it works OK. Most bigger sellers I know live in the 10-30% net range.
Our Walmart store is pretty sad, cross product lines we sell between 1-10% of our rev on Amazon :( ... but that's also because our products (home and kitchen) have lower cost competitors on Walmart itself. We're the mid-premium product, which is a much better position on Amazon and the right marketplace fit.
> My fees are high but my COGS are low -- they're typically <30%
45% for me in 2025.
>but our typical unit pricing is <$30
$59 ASP in 2025 ($63 average revenue per sale).
>Most bigger sellers I know live in the 10-30% net range.
Yes, that's the impression I've gotten of the marketplace megasellers, of 10% margins being the norm. Not quite the old dotcom joke of losing money on every sale but making it up on volume, but you know what I mean.
>but that's also because our products (home and kitchen) have lower cost competitors on Walmart itself. We're the mid-premium product, which is a much better position on Amazon and the right marketplace fit
That's interesting; I would have thought that Amazon would have more sellers across price points. Walmart has more Chinese sellers with gibberish brand names than before thanks to a noticeable loosening of application criteria, but still fewer than Amazon. Are competitors at your price point not present on Amazon but are present on Walmart? Or they are present on both, but for whatever reason (advertising, FBA/FBM differential) your listings get relatively more visibility on Amazon?
For my product niche, Amazon has (many) more buyers at my pricepoint and value prop (moderately well-designed kitchen gadgets at a price point between your run-on-the-mill gadget and OXO).
Maybe I also know how to SEO better on Amazon vs Walmart, but not sure! ¯\(°_o)/¯
As mentioned my revenue is far smaller, so I need larger margins. My total marketplace fees plus shipping spend in 2025 was 26% of revenue. My net margin was 28%, but the metric I focus on is margin on COGS; that was 60% in 2025 and 54% lifetime.
Hearing your account and that of another seller with close to seven figures revenue makes me think I should aim for smaller margins. Not as small as yours, but maybe 10% smaller.
>We also do B&M and website sales which have way less hassle or much lower expenses, but get nowhere near the traffic of Amazon, so that's why we deal with 'em...
My Walmart revenue equaled Amazon's in 2025.
I've thought about opening my own website. On the one hand my multichannel software already supports such, so it would be from that perspective just another marketplace. On the other hand, besides the additional cost and hassle, I keep coming back to how difficult it is to match the Amazons and Walmarts of the world in terms of customer reach.