Should Your Distributors and Dealers Sell on Amazon? How to Pick Your Amazon Channel Model

If you sell through distributors, dealers or retail, Amazon raises a question most brands answer by accident: who is supposed to sell your product there?

Usually nobody decides. A dealer starts listing. Then two more do. Then someone you’ve never heard of. Five years later the brand has no idea who owns its Amazon presence. Here are the real options and how to pick.

The four models

1. You sell direct (brand-owned seller account). You run your own Seller Central account, control the listing, own the customer data Amazon shares, and hold the price. Dealers and distributors don’t sell on Amazon.

2. One authorized reseller. You pick one partner, often a distributor or a specialist reseller, and authorize only them. You still control the brand and listings through Brand Registry, but they hold and sell the inventory.

3. A short list of authorized dealers. A few named dealers are allowed to sell on Amazon under clear rules: price, condition, fulfillment standards. Everyone else is not.

4. Vendor Central (1P). You sell wholesale to Amazon and Amazon sells to the customer. We compare this with selling direct in Seller Central vs. Vendor Central.

There’s also the default, which isn’t really a model: everyone sells. Any dealer who wants to list does. In our experience this is where price erosion and listing damage come from.

How to choose

Four questions decide most of it.

How much does your dealer network matter to you?

If independent dealers are the backbone of your business, competing with them on Amazon can feel like a betrayal, and some will tell you so. A limited-dealer or single-reseller model can keep them on side. If dealers are a smaller share of revenue, selling direct usually makes more sense.

Who can actually run it?

Running Amazon properly is a job: listings, ads, inventory, pricing, case work. A distributor that’s good at moving pallets isn’t automatically good at running a marketplace. Ask any candidate reseller to show you an Amazon account they manage well.

How much do you care about margin and data?

Selling direct keeps the retail margin and the sales data. Authorizing a reseller gives up most of both in exchange for less work on your side.

How strong is your price control?

More sellers means more pressure on price. If you can’t enforce a MAP policy today, adding sellers makes it harder.

What we usually recommend for established brands

For brands between roughly $3M and $8M that sell through multiple channels, the pattern that tends to work:

• The brand sells direct under its own account, with Brand Registry roles set correctly. See Brand Registry roles explained.
• Dealers keep their own websites and stores but agree not to sell on Amazon, Walmart or eBay, written into their agreements.
• The brand holds the same advertised price everywhere, so dealers aren’t undercut by the brand’s own Amazon listing.

That last point matters. Dealers stop worrying about Amazon once they see the brand isn’t using it to undercut them.

That said, this isn’t right for everyone. If you don’t want to run Amazon and don’t want an agency to, a single strong authorized reseller is a legitimate choice. The worst choice is not choosing.

How to tell dealers about the change

Brands worry dealers will revolt. In practice, a clear message lands better than expected:

• Explain the why. Unauthorized sellers undercutting everyone hurt dealers more than the brand.
• Show what’s in it for them. A stable advertised price protects their margin.
• Give a timeline. Thirty to sixty days to sell through Amazon inventory and remove listings is usually fair.
• Put it in the agreement. A verbal understanding won’t hold up later. See authorized reseller agreements.

Getting from “everyone sells” to a real model

1. Map who is selling today and at what price.
2. Decide which model fits your business.
3. Update dealer and distributor agreements.
4. Communicate the change with a timeline.
5. Trace and address the sellers who remain. Our guide to distributor diversion covers the follow-through.

Step one is the one most brands have never done. Our free channel scan does it for you: every seller on your products, matched to the company behind it.

Frequently asked questions

Written by

Troy Marchand, CEO

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