Brands selling on marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart have always faced challenges. Whether you’ve been selling for over a decade or just recently implemented a marketplace strategy, it’s no secret that it can be a challenge to ensure all parts of your strategy work together to maintain profitability.
In recent years, however, selling on marketplaces has gotten even more difficult. Today, we’re going to dive into exactly why selling on marketplaces is getting harder, and how your brand can address these challenges head on!
Data Overload
If you were selling on Amazon 8+ years ago, you might find it hard to believe that you have access to too much data. Back then, sellers had the opposite problem—you couldn’t even easily see your ads data broken down by month or day.
Now, Amazon and Walmart are sharing more data than ever before. While the amount of available data can be overwhelming, it’s compounded with the complicated views and export settings in Seller Central. But just having access to the data isn’t enough; the brands that know how to splice and dice the data and connect it together in actionable ways are the ones who are succeeding.
In Kapoq, we divide up relevant data into six interconnected modules, which allows you to easily look at different areas of your business and get an overview of their performance. Kapoq also highlights immediate changes you need to make in your account with our Alerts and Opportunities — which shows you actions you can take to improve the health of your account.
Increased Competition
It’s no surprise that there’s increased competition on Amazon — selling on marketplaces has become an integral part of most brands’ strategies. Selling on your owned website isn’t enough; brands have a full-funnel view of their business. From advertising on Meta to selling on TikTok Shop, brands are diversifying their channels more than ever, and Amazon is just one piece of the overall puzzle.
With this increased competition comes changes in strategy for your pricing, promotions, and advertising. Will you decrease your margins to beat out your competitors’ pricing? Will you offer more promotions during tentpole days? Will you bid on your competitors’ branded search terms to cannibalize their listings?
There’s no right answer to any of these questions, but they’re all important to consider as you craft your larger marketplace strategy to accommodate for increased competition.
External Factors
We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the external factors that affect selling on marketplaces — like tariffs and fee increases. All of these factors outside of your control can squeeze your margins, making it difficult to set prices.
Amazon announced fee changes in 2024 and 2025, and you can expect more in 2026. These annual fee increases won’t stop anytime soon, and they often accompany policy changes, like changes to Amazon Warehousing and Distribution.
Furthermore, there’s just a general unpredictability in the market, especially around United States tariffs. Many brands experienced a tumultuous 2025 in regards to tariffs, and they’re expecting that uncertainty to continue into 2026.
It can be hard to calculate the exact impact of these external factors, but Kapoq can help you easily calculate your profit and loss on Amazon, a notoriously complicated process within marketplaces, including how fees and tariffs impact your bottom line.
Increased Operational Expectations
Amazon no longer carries the burden for your operations; they expect you to optimize shipments to FBA or pay Amazon with time and money by having them optimize for you. And, of course, in 2025 there were new ASIN level restock limits for FBA, which affects inventory at the ASIN level, not account level.
Brands are expected to maintain perfect inventory levels — not too high, not too low — even in the midst of tentpole days like Cyber Monday or Prime Day. It’s a careful balance of being optimistic about your sales, but not being too conservative and running out of stock early. Plus, even during usual sales days, Sellers can face fees if they store too much or too little stock in Amazon’s warehouses.
Advertising Expansion
Amazon continues to expand their advertising efforts with new ad types, formats, placements, and audiences. Over the next year, we’ll likely see Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect both expand their advertising offerings.
As all marketplaces continue to add new features, it can be a lot to keep on top of it all, ensuring you’re following best practices while avoiding wasted spend. Kapoq’s Alerts and Opportunities module can help alleviate some of that pressure by letting you know when there are opportunities for improvement in your account, including advertising.
Conclusion
It’s no surprise that selling on Marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon is getting harder — from inventory to advertising, competition to tariffs, there’s a lot to keep track of. Sellers, now more than ever, have to stay on top of their accounts in order to maintain profitability.
If you’re looking for an easy way to ensure your account is healthy, sign up for a free demo of Kapoq to see how we can help you save time and money!
