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Introduction
Sreenath Reddy:
Welcome back to the Intentwise Connect Podcast! I’m your host, Sreenath Reddy. Today, we’re talking about something every brand leader on Amazon is thinking about—margin erosion. Why are brands losing profitability, and how can they fight back? Joining me is Jasim Eisa, CEO of Voadera, an accelerator and exclusive distributor helping brands scale across Amazon, Walmart, and other marketplaces. Jasim, welcome to the show.
Jasim Eisa:
Thank you, Sreenath. It’s great to be here. At Voadera, we’ve been helping brands grow for nearly a decade. We purchase inventory directly and manage the entire channel end-to-end—from Amazon and Walmart to Target. Our mission is to help brands scale profitably while removing operational complexity.
Understanding Margin Erosion
Sreenath:
Margin pressures have really intensified in the last 18 months. From your perspective, what’s driving this erosion?
Jasim:
Margins are tighter than ever, especially for inventory-based businesses like ours. Even at $80–100 million in annual sales, the margins are single digits. Beyond the obvious Amazon fees—like referral, FBA fulfillment, and pick-and-pack—brands are getting hit with new, less visible costs. Think inbound placement fees, long-term storage surcharges, return handling fees, and even new Amazon programs like FDAP 2026 that add layers of complexity. Add in freight, 3PL acceptance fees, and supply-chain costs, and the leaks start to multiply. Many brands think they have a cash-flow problem, but it’s actually a profitability problem caused by hidden fees.
Where Brands Go Wrong
Sreenath:
That’s a critical insight. What causes this blind spot for so many brands?
Jasim:
Two things—complexity and complacency. Amazon keeps adding new fees as the platform matures. What used to be a simple referral and FBA fee structure now includes dozens of micro-charges. Meanwhile, logistics providers, SaaS tools, and even payment processors are following suit. The broader economic trend is “get buy-in, then raise prices.” We’ve seen it from Uber to Netflix, and now Amazon’s doing the same—launching programs like AWD or AGL, making them indispensable, and then increasing costs 30–40%.
Recent Fee Changes and Tariff Impacts
Sreenath:
Any recent changes brands should watch closely?
Jasim:
Yes—Amazon’s inbound placement fee is doubling, and the new fulfillment structure buries costs deeper in transaction reports. MCF and Buy with Prime fees are also rising 30–40%. Add tariff changes, freight surcharges, and SaaS tool duplication, and brands are often overspending without realizing it. My biggest advice: consolidate your tool stack and audit transaction reports line by line.
Advertising Efficiency
Sreenath:
Let’s talk about advertising. Can ad spend still drive margin improvement?
Jasim:
Absolutely—if you’re strategic. Sponsored Product ads are highly competitive now, so we test alternatives like Sponsored Video and even Amazon Canada campaigns, where CPCs are often half of what they are in the U.S. We also use AMC (Amazon Marketing Cloud) and DSP to target audiences more efficiently. The key is using data to stretch every ad dollar. Amazon’s goal is ad revenue, not your brand’s profitability, so you need a team that constantly optimizes campaigns and tests new formats.
Pricing and Promotion Alignment
Sreenath:
How should brands think about pricing, promotions, and profitability together?
Jasim:
Treat them as one system. Your promo budget, ad budget, and pricing strategy must align. For example, we prefer Lightning Deals because we can control timing, unlike Best Deals, which may run at off-hours but still charge full fees. We’ve also found that many brands underestimate their price elasticity. In one case, we raised a toy’s price from $45 to $60 just by emphasizing safety certifications in the product images—and sales barely dropped. The perceived value went up, margins improved, and we gained pricing power.
Planning for Peak Season
Sreenath:
With the holiday season approaching, how do you plan promotions to protect margins?
Jasim:
We allocate marketing budgets holistically—price discounts, ad spend, and coupons all come from one pool. Then we ask: Is this budget better spent on PPC or a Lightning Deal? For niche, giftable products, deals drive visibility. For high-competition items, we double down on ads. The point is flexibility—move spend where ROI is highest.
Customer Acquisition and Lifetime Value
Sreenath:
Do you prioritize acquiring new customers during these events?
Jasim:
Yes, especially for consumables with high repeat potential. For supplements, for example, we push hard in January’s “New Year, New Me” cycle. We rely on Subscribe & Save and test different coupon formats—percentage vs. dollar discounts—to see which drives better CAC-to-LTV performance. Using AMC data, we identify which audiences convert to subscribers fastest and optimize toward those.
Cross-Channel Margin Dynamics
Sreenath:
You operate across Amazon, Walmart, and Target. How do margins compare across marketplaces?
Jasim:
Each platform has trade-offs. Walmart’s fulfillment (WFS) is cheaper than FBA—storage and pallet costs are lower—but ad efficiency and conversion rates are stronger on Amazon. Even with higher fees, Amazon’s traffic volume and data transparency make it the most efficient acquisition channel. That’s why we balance operational savings on Walmart with marketing scale on Amazon.
Looking Ahead: What’s Next
Sreenath:
What trends are you watching in the next 12 months?
Jasim:
Amazon’s international marketplaces—like Canada, UK, and Japan—are growing faster than many realize. TikTok Shop is another big one. Influencer-driven commerce is becoming a serious acquisition channel, especially with U.S. ownership in place. Meanwhile, we’re investing in our own warehouses to reduce dependency on Amazon storage and inbound fees while keeping our 98.9% in-stock rate.
Key Advice for Brands
Sreenath:
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to brands trying to protect margins?
Jasim:
Know your numbers—deeply. Understand your true unit economics. Many brands focus on top-line sales but ignore profitability levers. Run SKU-level analyses, identify where the biggest leaks are, and fix the highest-impact areas first—whether that’s a 30% markup from a trading broker in China or overspending on software tools.
Voadera’s Value Proposition
Sreenath:
Finally, what’s Voadera’s value proposition to the brands you work with?
Jasim:
We specialize in taking brands from $2M to $20M by guaranteeing at least 20% year-over-year growth. We handle end-to-end marketplace management, optimize ad spend, and prevent costly blind spots like unauthorized resellers or inefficient fulfillment. Our average client sees 34% annual growth while improving bottom-line margins.
Sreenath:
That’s a great way to close. Jasim, thank you for sharing such practical and data-driven insights.
Jasim:
Thanks, Sreenath. It was a pleasure speaking with you. Anyone can find me on YouTube or LinkedIn—I share a lot of content on these topics there.
Sreenath:
And to our listeners, check out all past episodes of Intentwise Connect at intentwise.com/podcast