How to Scale on Amazon with a Dual Strategy: Protecting Control and Margin

For many brands, scaling on Amazon involves more than one route to market. For example, Vendor Central provides access to Amazon’s retail muscle. In contrast, Seller Central enables direct control over pricing, content, and advertising. Furthermore, trusted third-party (3P) partners can offer reach without the overhead.

But in the absence of a well-defined plan, these channels frequently wind up going up against one another. As a result, this leads to margin erosion, BuyBox volatility, and operational headaches that stall growth instead of fuelling it. At Market Rocket, our focus is on helping organisations make hybrid models work. Such success is achieved by building strategic clarity between channels right from the outset.

Why Dual Channel Strategies Can Be Effective

If managed correctly, running both Vendor and Seller-or combining direct and 3P sales – can:

• Diversify risk across fulfilment models and inventory availability.

• Provide agility in launching, testing, or scaling new ASINs

• Give the brand more levers to pull when responding to demand, seasonality or retail pressure

• Support both retail buyer relationships and direct-to-consumer goals

However, this approach only succeeds when a clear structure is in place.

Where Unstructured Approaches Go Wrong

We often see issues like:

• A brand may face unintentional Buy Box competition between its listings and those of its resellers or Vendor offers.

• Product Detail Page (PDP) misalignment is a common issue. This occurs when the same product displays different titles, bullet points, or images, depending on which party owns the content.

• Margin compression can be caused by channel overlap in advertising or retail underpricing. 
• Inefficient use of budget where Seller Central is driving top-of-funnel traffic, but Vendor gets the sale. 

Without governance, even well-intentioned channel setups lead to duplicated effort and diluted brand presence.

How We Help Brands Structure a Dual Strategy

We define a framework based on:

• Catalogue segmentation: which products belong where, and why

• Clear ownership of content across listings to maintain brand consistency

• Delineated ad strategy: ensuring no internal cannibalisation of traffic or spend

• Margin-based channel evaluation to guide product and promo decisions

• Performance metrics tracked per channel to inform reallocation

This does not always necessitate eliminating one channel completely. Instead, it involves understanding the specific value that each channel provides. It means preventing them from undermining each other’s success. For brands that sell through both vendor and seller channels or collaborate with third-party sellers, achieving more profitable and coordinated growth is possible with the right expertise.

Want to see your Amazon performance skyrocket?  Book a call with our team or email us at amazon@marketrocket.co.uk to take your brand to the next level.