That receipt Lao Zhou ran for me last week
Last week I had dinner with Lao Zhou, a friend who's been selling pet supplies on Amazon for five years. The more he talked, the more worked up he got: "This year Amazon took 35%, ads ate another 20%. I worked a whole year to earn one employee's salary."
Amazon's cut isn't commission — it's tax
Seth Godin recently published a blog post called The Amazon Tax. The core idea in one line: you trade profit for traffic, traffic for sales, sales for platform dependency — and in the end, your profit, your customer data, and your brand all get handed over.
In 2021, I helped a friend — Xiaolin, who makes handmade soap — list on Amazon. Her first year hit 2,000 orders a month. The second year she tried to raise prices by 5 yuan, but got crushed by similar competitors. Her repeat customers stayed trapped inside Amazon — she couldn't move them to WeChat. "I became an Amazon worker," she said. I got stuck on this step too — back then I was only staring at the sales numbers, never thinking about "who the customers actually are."
What you can try today
- Money: Individual FBA seller plan is $39.99/month; Professional plan has no monthly fee but takes 8–15% commission + ads
- Time: Listing one product takes at least a week (photos, writing the listing, shipping stock to the warehouse)
- Technical barrier: You just need to know the seller backend — no coding. But product selection and ads are a craft
- First step: Register at sellercentral.amazon.com, or check the Brand Registry trademark process first
How to choose at each stage
If you're just starting out: I'd hold off going all-in on Amazon. First I'd run a minimal loop on my own site (Shopify or Youzan) to confirm I'm willing to do customer service and ship every day.
If you have 1–2 stable customers: I'd run Amazon alongside, but remember — customers belong to the platform, not to you. Carve out one day a month to migrate order customers to WeChat or an email list.
If I'm scaling up: Run the full numbers — platform commission, ads, returns, inventory loss — and compare to my own site + Xiaohongshu private traffic. If Amazon's net margin is under 10%, I'm basically working for Amazon.
Of course, this tool isn't for everyone. If you just want convenience and pure volume, Amazon is still the most stable channel today. But if you're aiming to own your customers long-term, you'll eventually have to settle the "rented traffic" bill.