Episode · 2026-04-04
Amazon's 3.5% Upcharge
Amazon's 3.5% Upcharge | HOT JOBS! | Brandon Blum x Ben Feys x Kevin Niehoff
Rundown
Chris and Colin cover DTC news including Amazon's new 3.5% seller surcharge and Amazon's $172B in 2025 seller fee revenue, run through a rapid-fire roundup of marketing stunts (Subway race-fuel gels, Dude Wipes) and a McDonald's employee gold-card story, then sit down with Prettyboy co-founders Ben Feys and Kevin Niehoff for an unboxing and origin-story interview covering meta ad spend and athlete partnerships.
Takes from this episode
Amazon's 3.5% surcharge is a harmful margin hit on brands trying to scale, and platforms should be giving margin back rather than taking more of it.
3.5% surcharge here, it really eats into margin and this is another brutal ding for brands as they're trying to scale through all of this stuff... More margin, por favor.
Reselling sourced/vintage product on platforms like Whatnot is a smart low-cost way to start a brand before eventually launching your own product line.
The way they started their business was by going to Goodwill... getting all of the '90-ish, early 2000's hats... They built a great business with that. What did they end up doing afterwards? They started making their own hats.
Brands should test attaching Amazon's fulfillment/logistics to their own DTC checkout, but must carefully word the copy so customers aren't tipped off to buy on Amazon instead.
You really should be AB testing the conversion rate of what this is going to do to your website... you do have to be a little bit careful of the copy to make sure you do not confuse the consumer.
Since brands can't out-compete Amazon on shipping speed, unboxing is the moment to win the customer over with a pleasant post-purchase experience.
This is your opportunity to outdo Amazon... you can't sometimes you can't beat them on shipping... but you can give them pleasant unboxing experience.
Lifetime access perks like a gold card are wasted on a typical employee and would be far more valuable given to a prolific content creator who'd generate ongoing exposure from it.
somebody who's like continually making content or IShowSpeed... such a smart move... I think it's smart. Just think we gave it to the wrong person here.
Authentic athlete and creator partnerships only materialize if the product is genuinely good, since credible partners won't endorse a product they don't personally love.
You got to have a great product actually. Those those guys aren't going to work with you if they don't like the products.