#460 - Amazon Isn’t The Business. It’s the Acquisition & Distribution

Selling on Amazon with Andy Isom

Andy Isom | Amazon FBA Seller & Agency Founder

Amazon, Business, Amazonfba, Selling, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Personalbusiness, Productbusiness, Ecommerce, Onlinebusiness

4.9 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most sellers treat Amazon like the whole business. But the smart ones know it’s just the engine. In this episode of Built by Business, Andy Isom breaks down how to treat Amazon as your best distribution channel—not your only strategy. Learn how to use Amazon for cash flow, customer acquisition, and validation—then expand into long-term brand-building channels like DTC, retail, and wholesale.

If you're ready to build something bigger than just an Amazon store, this episode is your roadmap.

Request your Free Amazon Brand Audit at www.weavos.io

Transcript

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0:00.0	Amazon is not your business. It's your distribution channel, your acquisition funnel, and maybe even your proof of concept.
0:10.0	And if you treat it like your entire business, you're potentially building a fragile one.
0:30.3	Amazon is not the business. It's not the brand. I know that even I say it a lot, building an Amazon business. But if we're being real here, Amazon is simply the back end engine. We need to have a mindset shift. We're not building a business on Amazon.
0:41.4	We're building a business with Amazon. It's a channel, not a business model. You are building an
0:48.0	e-commerce business. And ultimately, if you want to be smart, you're going to diversify across
0:53.7	multiple channels and marketplaces.
0:56.6	Amazon has a lot of benefits.
0:59.2	They have massive built-in traffic and demand.
1:02.5	Fairly quick cash flow, a low friction buying process, and instant credibility with prime
1:10.0	reviews and search rankings.
1:12.0	But what Amazon doesn't give you is a customer relationship,
1:15.9	long-term defensibility against other brands and Chinese competitors
1:20.1	right next to you in the search results at half your price.
1:23.9	If Amazon shut you down tomorrow, would your business still exist? I am a huge fan of using Amazon as a launch pad, especially for solopreneurs.
1:35.8	Use Amazon to validate demand of your product, tighten up your operations, learn how to run in e-commerce
1:42.3	business, and prove that your profit margins can work.
1:45.9	If all three of those are working for you on Amazon, then you know you've got a good chance
1:51.0	of expanding into D to C, building out a wholesale channel, or entering into retail.
1:57.4	I've seen handfuls of my own students over the years do 50, 100,000, even
2:03.5	$300,000 and $400,000 a month on Amazon and use that cash flow to hire team members to focus on
2:10.7	social media content, build out their TikTok and their Shopify store without having to invest
2:17.4	any more outside funding.
	...

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