Amazon Vendor Unpacked: Where Should Your Brand Sell Next? Amazon, TikTok Shop or Shopify

Someone sends you a video of a brand making an extraordinary amount of money on TikTok Shop. A competitor appears on another marketplace. Your Amazon account is becoming harder work, and suddenly a new sales channel looks very appealing.

Before long, the question lands: “Should we be on there?”

Possibly. But before you open another account, consider what you want the next channel to solve. Do you need new customers, a closer relationship with existing ones or less dependence on Amazon? Or are you hoping a new platform will make growth easier?

Those are different problems, and they call for different decisions.

In this Amazon Vendor Unpacked panel, host Chris Khoo brings together Asha Bhalsod, James Wakefield, Prabhat Shah and Carina McLeod. Their experience offers a useful way to approach your next move: look beyond the platform’s potential and examine what success there would require from your business.

Watch the full Amazon Vendor Unpacked panel: [Insert YouTube link]

Your next channel needs to solve a specific problem

“What is the brand looking to achieve and what are their goals at that current stage?”
Carina McLeod

That question deserves an answer before you start comparing platforms.

If you want to introduce an unfamiliar product to new customers, a demonstration-led approach may be worth exploring. If repeat purchases and customer relationships are the priority, your own website may deserve more attention. If you want to reduce dependence on Amazon, a specialist marketplace could offer a relevant audience you have overlooked.

The panel’s recommendations differed. Asha and Carina highlighted TikTok Shop, James discussed Shopify, and Prabhat advocated investing in your website while remaining open to other marketplaces.

You don’t need to turn those opinions into a contest. Use them to challenge your brief.

Write down what you need the channel to achieve in one sentence. “Reach customers who need to see the product demonstrated before they understand its value” gives you something to investigate. “Everyone seems to be doing well on TikTok” gives you very little to build a plan around.

Be careful what you take with you

Your new channel inherits the business you already have.

If product information is scattered across spreadsheets, another marketplace creates another place to reconcile it. If profitability is difficult to understand on Amazon, a second fee structure adds more work. If stock allocation already causes arguments, another channel adds another team asking for units.

Before launching, follow one proposed product through the entire process. Where will its content come from? How will stock availability stay accurate? Who handles the order, the return and the reconciliation?

This exercise can reveal whether the launch is manageable or depends on several people quietly absorbing extra work.

You may still have a strong opportunity. You will simply have a clearer picture of what needs to happen behind the scenes to support it.

Define the test before you start paying for it

“Brands get to about three months, they’re not seeing that break-even point and they get uncomfortable and they pull away.”
Carina McLeod

“Let’s test it” can sound like an agreement while hiding very different expectations.

Your marketing team may think it has six months to establish traction. Finance may expect the channel to cover its costs almost immediately. Senior management may have approved a small experiment without realising how much content, fulfilment and support it would require.

Those differences tend to surface when the spending becomes uncomfortable.

Give the test a clear question, a budget and a decision date. Specify which products are involved and what evidence would justify continuing, changing the approach or stopping.

For example, you might test whether a particular product can attract customers profitably through creator-led content. If people respond to the videos but don’t purchase, you can investigate the offer and listing. If sales arrive but the margin disappears into commissions and fulfilment, you have a different problem to solve.

Either result teaches you something useful. A vague verdict that “the platform didn’t work” leaves you with fewer answers.

Look beyond the sales screenshot

Revenue is often the most flattering part of a channel’s story.

Carina described planning for advertising, affiliate commissions, samples, content, discounts and fulfilment. Those costs can change how attractive a launch looks once you move beyond the headline sales figure.

Your team’s time also belongs in the assessment.

How much attention does the channel require each week? How many orders need intervention? Are you continually producing new creative to maintain momentum? Does customer service demand grow faster than the contribution?

A channel generating modest sales with manageable work may be a useful addition. A larger one that consumes your team’s capacity deserves closer scrutiny.

Ask two questions together: what does this channel contribute, and what does it take to keep it running?

Give a few products a fair chance

“You need to understand where are the gaps on that particular marketplace, what is my best product for those gaps.”
James Wakefield

James was discussing a focused Amazon US launch, but the principle is useful wherever you are considering expansion.

Taking your entire catalogue across can feel efficient, especially when listing tools make it relatively straightforward. It also creates more products competing for your budget and attention.

A smaller starting range gives you room to understand the competition, improve the content and assess the economics. You can learn why something is working or struggling before multiplying the workload.

Choose products with a clear reason to succeed in that environment. Can you demonstrate their benefits? Does the price leave room for the channel’s costs? Can you maintain availability if demand grows?

Your current bestsellers are a sensible place to investigate. Their existing performance doesn’t guarantee they are the strongest choice for every new audience.

Follow the customer beyond the checkout

“The storytelling itself is about connecting your brand with the customer.”
Prabhat Shah

Your customer may discover a product in one place and buy it somewhere else.

A demonstration catches their attention. They remember the name, search for it later and place an order on Amazon. The sale appears in Amazon’s reporting, while the activity that introduced the product becomes harder to identify.

That creates a risk when you assess every channel in isolation. You may undervalue something that helps generate demand because another platform completes the purchase.

Look at direct sales alongside changes in branded searches, customer feedback and performance elsewhere in the business. These signals won’t give you perfect attribution, but they can help you investigate what customers are doing.

Then follow the journey yourself. After someone sees your campaign, what will they find when they search? Are the details consistent? Is the product available? Can they get the information they need to buy confidently?

Your internal channel boundaries mean very little to the person trying to choose a product.

Make expansion earn its place

Before committing to your next channel, bring the commercial and operational questions together:

• What specific outcome do you need?
• Why does this platform suit your products and customers?
• Which products give you the strongest starting point?
• What can you invest, including your team’s time?
• What evidence will determine your next decision?
• Can your processes support more orders without constant intervention?

You don’t need certainty before you launch. You do need a clear enough plan to learn from the result.

A promising channel may deserve more investment. A weak offer may need changing. A successful test may expose a fulfilment problem that needs fixing before you increase demand.

The next move could be Amazon, TikTok Shop, Shopify or a specialist marketplace. Choose it because you can explain how it will help your business, and what you are prepared to do to make that happen.

Watch the full Amazon Vendor Unpacked discussion, hosted by Chris Khoo, with Asha Bhalsod, James Wakefield, Prabhat Shah and Carina McLeod: [Insert YouTube link]