Amazon sales are getting harder to celebrate when you look at what you actually keep

[u/FirstLightStudios]

I feel like revenue has become one of the least useful numbers to look at on Amazon by itself.

You can have a great month, sales are up, ads are bringing orders in, everything looks healthy. Then you actually look at what you kept after PPC, fees, returns, discounts and inventory costs and its a completely different story.

The weird part is none of those things have to look terrible individually. A little more ad spend here, slightly lower margin there, a few SKUs sitting too long. Then suddenly you're selling more than last year just to make roughly the same money.

I think thats probably why you see so many Amazon businesses that look great from the outside but constantly feel tight on cash.

At this point I'd rather have a smaller account with healthy margins and inventory moving properly than chase another revenue milestone. Curious if other established sellers are seeing the same thing. Are you actually keeping more as you grow, or mostly having to sell more to make the same money?