Ten years ago, most prestige and growth brands treated Amazon as a supplementary channel, something to turn on after prioritizing Sephora, Ulta, department stores, or DTC. Today, Amazon sits at the center of the P&L as a core revenue engine and strategic pillar; and brands that under‑invest in the channel are missing out on outsized growth, insight, and brand‑building opportunities.
Over the last few years, that shift has come into sharp focus in conversations with Envision Horizons clients and partners. Senior leaders are now talking about Amazon in the language of hero campaigns, unit economics, and board‑level priorities, not just catalog management and “replenishment.”
On paper, Amazon’s growth story in 2025 looked straightforward: net sales and marketplace demand climbed, even as costs rose across the P&L. Rising fees, logistics & labor inflation, and tariff shocks made it impossible to “fake” contribution profit; brands that did not really understand their unit economics watched their marketplace growth quietly erode margin.
The problem is, that reality clashes with an older mindset that Amazon is a “plug and play” platform. Many brands still expect a seamless launch and instead hit a wall of idiosyncrasies: retail‑readiness requirements, inventory constraints, review-building, and the need to build relevance at the bottom of the funnel before chasing awareness. When those basics are skipped and brands simply “turn on ads,” tentpoles like Prime Day and Cyber Week become expensive vanity metric boosts rather than profitable growth moments. Under those conditions, Amazon isn’t just a place to sell; it’s where your brand shows up under pressure.
Amazon may have once sat at the edge of the marketing deck. Now sits in the middle of the brand funnel. In a recent On The Horizons interview, Envision Horizons client Lil Fazio, SVP of Marketing at Elemis US, put it simply: “creative is targeting” on Amazon. If your hero campaign does not show up coherently on your PDPs, Brand Store, and retail media units, the scent trail goes cold right where most product search now begins.
However, its also important to note that shoppers don’t just live inside Amazon, they move in and out of channels all day. The mechanics of discovery on the platform are changing. AI‑enabled shopping modes and assistants like Rufus are shifting behavior from simple keyword search toward intent‑driven, conversational journeys, which rely heavily on structured catalog data, FAQs, reviews, and on‑page content. Brands that treat Amazon copy, imagery, and video as generic ecommerce assets are opting out of that discovery layer. Brands that invest in complete, high‑quality content and refresh it in line with search trends gain an edge.
None of this means Amazon should replace DTC, retail, or social as a focus.
The shopper, however, does not see channels the way organizations do. The shopper may first encounter a brand through an influencer, a salon treatment, a TikTok review, an AI chatbot, or a department store counter, etc. They may then head to Amazon to validate, compare, and decide whether and where to buy.
Client conversations make this journey concrete. Lil Fazio describes how millions of Elemis spa treatments occur each year aboard cruise ships; when those guests return to land and look to repurchase, they expect to find the brand wherever it is most convenient, including Amazon. Envision Horizons client Dawn Hilarczyk, COO of heritage luxury skincare brand Borghese, takes a similar stance: she doesn’t mind whether the customer shops at Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, the brand’s own site, or Amazon, so long as the experience feels consistent and accessible. In her view, convenience is now a core part of what luxury means.
So what does it actually look like when brands treat Amazon like a core part of the business rather than a side hustle?
What distinguishes brands that treat Amazon as a core channel in 2026 is less their platform presence and more how intentionally they operate on the platform and connect it to the rest of their business.
The themes that emerged in 2025 make it clear that the platform isn’t standing still. Amazon’s own growth remained robust, but the combination of fee shifts, logistics costs, and tariff pressures turned the marketplace into a stress test for margin management. Retail media became a decisive factor in who actually captured profit, not just top‑line sales, and creator programs evolved from experiments into true acquisition engines. AI‑powered tools reshaped both how shoppers discover products and how brands plan and measure spend.
Across those shifts, one pattern stood out: 2025 rewarded brands that treated Amazon as a real business. Those operators knew their unit economics, approached media and promotion as part of the P&L, built content and creative systems that could keep up with AI‑driven discovery, and used tentpole events to build true value. Brands that were present but under‑invested, by contrast, captured only a fraction of the channel’s potential and often learned hard margin lessons during the year’s biggest events.
For growing brands, shifting Amazon from side channel to core channel in 2026 doesn’t mean abandoning DTC or retail. In practice, this looks like:
In 2026, the brands that grow fastest and most profitably will be the ones that accept the multichannel reality, stop treating Amazon as an optional add‑on, and build it into the heart of how they acquire, serve, and retain customers across every touchpoint.
Envision Horizons is a global marketplace growth agency that empowers premium brands to dominate multi-channel commerce. We specialize in building awareness, capturing market share, and driving profitability across Amazon, Walmart, and other major retail media networks.
Our expert team delivers data-driven strategy, execution, and optimization for brands ready to scale their marketplace presence through our comprehensive service offerings:
Powered by our proprietary myHorizons intelligence platform and backed by Advanced Amazon Partner status, we deliver measurable results for leading brands worldwide.
Ready to transform your marketplace performance into sustainable growth? Connect with the Envision Horizons team to explore how we can help you make Amazon a core pillar of your 2026 strategy.