Navigating Amazon Without Any MAP

Getting onto Amazon’s Vendor Express was a big shift. It was the first time Juliano and I dealt with Amazon as a wholesale partner.

The good news was these sales were guaranteed every 2weeks and came in much larger volumes. Instead of small orders trickling in, we were suddenly moving thousands of dollars’ worth of product at a time. So this is what repeat business feels like, I thought. 

But there was a catch. Amazon’s approach to pricing meant they were willing to go lower than we ever would. There’s that Jeff Bezos quote, “Your margin is my opportunity,” and it turns out, he meant it. They paid what we wanted to charge but they refused to honor any minimum advertised pricing (MAP), so they set whatever price they wanted.

That meant we inevitably ended up coming up against our own listings and we couldn't compete. Our own 3rd party listings couldn’t match the low prices they were offering and customers started expecting that discount everywhere.

We thought we were smart bringing freeze-dried miracle berries to the market first. We had the margin we needed for wholesale but Amazon had the scale and the power. Just like that, we weren’t fighting knockoffs anymore. We were fighting ourselves.

It forced us to face a new reality. If we ever went the traditional food and beverage wholesale route, this would be normal. But for a bootstrapped startup, it didn’t make sense to let someone else control the customer relationship and the pricing.

We started realizing that sticking with direct-to-consumer was the smarter path for now. Still, we knew the next curveball was coming. We just didn’t know how soon.

And in the middle of all that, we kept the flavor experiments rolling.

This week’s test? Another summer staple: peaches. Right now they’re in peak season, which means they’re already super ripe and juicy. Perfect on their own. But that’s exactly the point. The berry isn’t just for making unpleasant things taste good. It delivers an equal mind blow when it takes something delicious to the next level.

So I went down to my grocery store and picked up a few peaches. As I washed them off I let Nature's Wild Berry coat my tongue for 30 seconds. And viola! No before-and-after needed, I knew that first bite was going to pure candy and it was. It somehow took a perfect peach and made it sweeter, smoother and even more addicting. No added sugar. In fact, I didn't want to add anything. And that's this weeks flavor upgrade your brain didn’t see coming.

And yeah, I want you checking in each week not just for the startup lessons and flavor tests but for the fun of it. There’s a hidden alphanumeric 48-hour discount code in this post. Did you catch a word that looks off? That’s your 20 percent off code. Enter it exactly as shown.

— Hank