How Amazon almost put me out of business... Sellers Beware!

I am a pick-yourself-up, figure-it-out, keep-going kind of woman. I do not complain much, and I do not like to dwell. But every once in a while, something happens that is important enough to talk about — not because I am bitter, but because I genuinely do not want you to go through what I went through.

Selling on Amazon was probably the worst business decision I have ever made. And I say that as someone who got a patent, figured out manufacturing in a rural Colorado town of 3,500 people, and learned stretch stitching from YouTube. I am not easily defeated. But Amazon? Amazon is a different kind of beast.

Here is everything I wish someone had told me first.

Amazon Takes a Giant Cut. Like, a Shockingly Giant Cut.

Here is what the glossy "sell on Amazon and scale your business!" content does not tell you: Amazon is not your business partner. Amazon is your landlord, your marketing department, your fulfillment center, your customer service system, AND your biggest competitor — all at the same time — and they charge you for every single one of those roles.

Referral fees. FBA storage fees. FBA fulfillment fees. Removal fees. Return fees. Long-term storage fees. The fees have fees.

And then, on top of all of that, you have to pay to advertise just to show up in search results on a platform where people are already looking for your exact product. You are paying Amazon to host your listing AND paying Amazon again to show that listing to shoppers. The math is not mathing, friends.

The Amazon Bots Are Not Your Friends

Here is a fun little game Amazon likes to play: randomly take your listings down because an algorithm decided you broke a rule. No warning. No explanation that makes sense. Just — poof. Listing gone.

I am not exaggerating. I had listings pulled because of vague policy violations that took days to sort out, communicate about, and get reinstated. And while your listing is down? You are not selling. You are just losing money quietly.

And it gets better.

One Color Goes Out of Stock? Amazon Punishes Your Whole Product.

This one made me want to scream into a field. (I live in rural Colorado, so that is a very real option for me.)

I have headbands in 30-plus colors. If one color sells out on Amazon's end — just one — Amazon penalizes the entire listing in organic rankings. Even though I have plenty of other colors in stock. Even though customers can still buy. Even though nothing is actually gone.

Here is the part that makes this especially maddening. There are two ways to sell on Amazon, and you need to understand both to appreciate how absurd this is.

FBA — Fulfilled by Amazon means you ship your inventory to Amazon's warehouses in advance, and Amazon stores it, packs it, and ships it directly to your customers. It is convenient, but you are at the mercy of Amazon's warehouse systems, timelines, and stock counts.

FBM — Fulfilled by Merchant means you fulfill the orders yourself, directly from your own location. When a customer orders, you pack it and ship it. More work on your end, but you are in control.

Here is what I do: when a color sells out in FBA, I do not just throw my hands up. I immediately switch that color over to FBM and fulfill it myself from my shop in Yuma. The product is not out of stock. It never was. I have it. I am shipping it. The customer gets it.

But Amazon does not care about any of that.

As far as Amazon's algorithm is concerned, that variant went out of stock in their warehouse — and that is enough to bury your entire listing. It does not matter that you are still shipping the same color the same day from your own hands.

So I fall in rankings. And when I fall in rankings, I sell less. And when I sell less, I have to spend more on ads to claw my way back up. It is a beautiful, expensive, maddening little cycle.

My Busiest Year Ever. My Worst Year Financially.

Last year was the most volume I have ever done. I was shipping headbands constantly. I had to hire help to fill orders. I was buying inventory, running ads, managing FBA restocks, dealing with the three-to-four-week lag between products leaving my shop and actually becoming available for sale on Amazon.

I worked 80 hours a week for 18 months straight.

And at the end of it all — after Amazon fees, advertising costs, hiring, inventory, and every other expense that came with operating at that scale — I made $26.

Twenty. Six. Dollars. I have found more money than that in an old coat pocket.

So Why Am I Not Bitter About It?

Here is the part where I surprise you.

As painful, exhausting, and financially devastating as the Amazon chapter was, it taught me two things I could not have learned any other way.

Number one: People actually want my headbands. At the scale Amazon forced me to operate, I got real proof that SWAY is not just a good idea — it is a product with real demand. Real customers. Real repeat buyers. Real five-star reviews from women who said things like "this is the only headband that has ever stayed in my hair." That is not nothing. That is everything.

Number two: I know exactly what I am capable of producing. I learned what it takes to manufacture at volume. I learned my production capacity. I learned what I need in terms of equipment, staffing, and systems to scale. I went in thinking I was just selling headbands. I came out knowing I was running a manufacturing operation. That is a completely different and much more valuable thing to understand about your own business.

Amazon was my proof of concept and my production stress test all rolled into one brutally expensive experiment. And I would do it again — knowing what I know now, I just would not stay as long.

🩷