WHAT VMS BRANDS GET WRONG ABOUT
AMAZON AT SCALE
VMS brands are built on the fundamentals most categories envy: loyalty, efficacy, repeat purchase. On Amazon, that strength often translates into quick wins with organic visibility, strong conversion, and momentum that seems to prove the model works.
But early success can mask structural risk. And if those cracks aren’t fixed fast, they quietly put a ceiling on growth.
At scale, Amazon exposes loose systems. Pricing conflicts, reseller interference, fulfillment gaps…anything unchecked becomes magnified, so the bigger the brand, the faster control slips away.
Our Amazon Marketplace Growth team has pinpointed the three patterns that show exactly where leading VMS brands are betting wrong.
Mistake #1: Treating Amazon Like Another Wholesale Account
A lot of VMS organizations still manage Amazon like a traditional wholesale partner. They ship product, review sell-in numbers, maybe monitor inventory, and then stop there. That approach might work in brick and mortar. On Amazon though? It’s fatal.
Amazon is the storefront, the logistics engine, and the referee for price, authenticity, and experience, not just another account. If you’re not managing those moving parts, someone else is. Often resellers and bots that don’t care about your brand story or your margins find their way in with your product.
What starts as a “set it and forget it” strategy turns into a fragmented marketplace that no one truly owns.
Mistake #2: Assuming Reseller Problems Are “Inevitable”
In the early days, a few gray-market listings or unauthorized sellers might feel manageable. At enterprise scale, those leaks become floodgates.
Resellers distort the entire channel as they take a slice of the revenue:
- Buy Box erosion sends sales to unauthorized listings.
- Price suppression punishes every honest seller, dragging margins across your retail ecosystem.
- Trust erosion hits hardest in supplements, where any hint of inauthenticity is reputationally toxic.
Our team has witnessed it firsthand: a leading VMS portfolio appeared to be scaling smoothly until data exposed how fragmented Buy Box control had quietly capped their growth. Demand was high. Revenue wasn’t.
Discover how Front Row regained control and revenue for Microbiome Labs in no time by reading our case study.
Mistake #3: Optimizing Marketing Before Securing the Foundation
Here’s the cycle we see too often: sales flatten, so marketing doubles down. Brands pour money into ads, refreshed PDPs, and new SKU launches, but it all sits on an unstable foundation.
Without Buy Box ownership, those tactics scale chaos more than they scale revenue:
- Paid traffic fuels reseller listings.
- CAC balloons while conversion data lies.
- Teams chase growth signals that don’t translate to profit.
Simply put: you can’t advertise your way out of a structural leak. Foundation first. Growth second.
The Real Misunderstanding: Amazon as a Trust Marketplace
In VMS, trust is the currency. Consumers buy credibility as much as they buy efficacy, and Amazon operates on that same principle.
Its systems are engineered to protect trust: consistent availability, authenticated sellers, and predictable experiences. When you align your operations with that logic, Amazon becomes a multiplier. When you fight it, the platform fights back through suppressed listings, channel chaos, and invisible ceilings on scale.
Scaling on Amazon Shouldn’t Mean Losing Control
Growth should expand your control, not erode it.
Front Row’s Amazon Marketplace Growth team helps VMS portfolios diagnose structural risks, lock down Buy Box control, and redesign their Amazon operating models for sustainable, defensible growth.
Because when it comes to Amazon, the brands that win aren’t “spending more.” They’re running smarter.
