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**Amazon Sales:**
2017-2024, 99.1% of our sales were on Amazon. Averaging $43m per year, total margin of 7.28%. Average net profit line of $3,130,400 per year.
2017-2020, I was working off an average net of 10.79%
2021-2024, as return scams, increased storage fees, increased amazon fees, competitors locking up our most profitable ASINs with black hat techniques, and finally the inundation of cheap chinese knockoffs using deceptive titles to confuse customers into buying shit chinese stuff instead of my American made quality products started to build, our margins were as low as 6.71% in 2023.
In early 2023 I started my plan of moving away from Amazon and direct to consumer via my own website. I refused to give into Amazon's new business plan of making most of their revenue off ads, and even though my products were being searched for by name and sku number, I was appearing on page 2. I would not give in and I never paid a penny for Amazon Ads.
**Website Sales:**
2023-2024 was laying the ground work for exiting amazon and while my website was 10+ years old, it was neglected. It took a lot of time and money to make it current. Total cost was in the neighborhood of $650,000, however it is very tough to figure that out exactly. I have so many products, that it took almost a year to build the listings and all employees were working on it when they had down time.
With the website, I now have two new costs that I never had to deal with, advertising and SEO. I hired a full time SEO expert in house, and my monthly advertising budget is $65,000. I also had to bring in 3 new packers to handle the new volume of boxes leaving our facility, because FBA used to handle that.
As of July 21st, my 2025 sales have been $18,327,315.70 on my website, $367,283.27 on Amazon (we have not restocked anything since February)
So far my net is 17.02%, $3,119,309 on the website, and 6.28% on Amazon, for $23,065.
My sales are down 18% YOY from 2024, but my profit is up almost 230%
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When I left Amazon, the race to the bottom in my niche was over. My competitors on Amazon raised their prices, I raised my website prices and margins soared.
Profit aside, there is no way to convey how stress free my life is today vs 2 years ago. Our customers our now my customers, we can provide incredible customer service, our scam returns are virtually zero, our reviews are absolutely insanely positive, and every month our organic conversion rates from the search engines go up, lowering advertising overhead. I am no longer having to rely on some lady in India with a screaming baby in the background to take care of my product page issues. I don't have to worry about Amazon axing product pages, flagging my top sellers for pesticides, or product pages just vanishing and spending hours upon hours getting them restored.
At the same time, all of these chinese shit temu ASINs designed to go after my products are receiving horrible reviews on amazon and their sales numbers have to be tumbling.
Leaving Amazon was the best thing I've ever done, and even if you don't plan on leaving soon, please, please, please start your website building sooner than later, even if you do not generate a lot of sales it will give you a huge leg up when Amazon goes 100% temu.
Take it from an OG on Amazon (almost 18 years), Amazon used to be amazing. They cared about their sellers, they cared about their customers and they were a great place to sell, buy, and use for legit reviews. Amazon is now a dumpster fire. Yes there is money to be made here and there, but once the sentiment gets a little worse, I believe we are going to see a large customer shift away from Amazon, and you want to be prepared.
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