Amazon Digest - 12.29.24

If you subscribe to a few email lists, you’ve probably noticed: everybody and their hermano is cranking out year-end reviews. Even more insightful—and allegedly accurate—predictions for 2025.

I’m not going to do that.

Instead, let’s talk about what this year felt like. Working with clients in the Amazon space. Talking to brands like yours.

Crowded. Noisy.
This year felt like trying to catch a train, getting ahead of a train, and, occasionally, feeling getting hit by a train. Amazon has highest number of sellers ever (9.7M active sellers). New software tools show up daily. It’s an effort to distill, ignore, quiet irrelevant noise in order to focus.

Amazon, as a platform, demands resilience. And this year, more than ever, felt like a mx of both endless opportunity and relentless complexity.

Maturity.
The platform. Amazon is no longer a disruptor, but the dominant player evolving to defend its position as the premise for growth. Oldest 100% DTC brands are going on the 2nd decade. Ecommerce maturity brings both sophistication but also simplicity. Why simplicity? Because complexity creates chaos, and our natural reaction to noise at some point to tune it out.

The business. For me, 10 years in the Amazon space has been a journey of evolution. My expertise has of course deepened, perspectives sharpened, and I’ve found a healthy balance between pragmatic business thinking and a naturally optimistic outlook. That’s reflected in what I share with you. You won’t find “latest Amazon marketing tactic” content from me. Instead, I aim to offer perspective—reflections shaped by the brands, businesses, and humans I’m fortunate to work with. I hope you find these reflections valuable—and that when the time comes to dial in your Amazon strategy, you’ll consider reaching out.

Potential.
It’s always been there. It always will be. But pulling that potential into reality feels different now.

Some things evolved this year:

• Amazon functional expertise dilution and transition. There are more humans offering Amazon services now. AI-enabled performance on many of those functions is better than that of humans. We are in the messy era of the overlap of subpar humans performance being weeded out by AI in some areas (data analysis, programmatic ads). But AI not quite yet delivering on other areas, like story writing and contextualized decisions. But the talent pool is reshuffling, and you are to benefit from that

• Focus solidified. In the year of constant changes, shifting consumer behavior, changing funding environment, winning approach was to focus on what you can control. Profitability isn’t optional. Building a brand, cultivating a community. Brand narrative. Margin discipline. I have seen focus on everlasting principles always win, both in clients’ businesses and my own.

And some things, frankly, broke:

• Supply Chain Whiplash. Post-pandemic supply chain pressures eased in some ways but became unpredictable in others. Amazon’s FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) constraints, FBA fees structure and requirements changing. Inflation on ingredients supply. At times it felt scrambling to adapt, to minimize OOS eating into profitability.

• The absence of an “Amazon CMO” or “Amazon COO.” There’s no formalized leadership role for brands whose primary channel is Amazon, but this is the first year I felt that there should be. A good Amazon agency is great for channel execution, but not for integrating Amazon into your business and broader business goals. Amazon isn’t just a sales channel; it’s an ecosystem, a way of operating, a strategy in itself. I found myself stepping into that role that doesn’t exist yet —helping guide Amazon channel in a waythat are equal parts of Amazon goals and business goals.

• Tug of War of Amazon own optimization and brands margins. Amazon own focus on profit, aka ‘operational efficiency’ meant more operational and P&L burden being past on the brands: through fees granularity, or what I call fee penny pinching, stricter fulfillment requirements, welcoming more Chinese sellers, and off-Amazon advertisers, thus driving ad costs up. The tug of war was, is, real: brands working to align their Amazon strategy with profitability goals, while Amazon refined its systems to secure its own.

2025 won’t be about grand predictions or profound reinventions.

It’ll be about clarity. Defining your focus.

Owning your category. And ensuring your team—and tools—are working on things that matter.

Saludos,

Irina