TL;DR
The most common trap is thinking the goal is to “out-amazon Amazon.” The more useful framing is: what do customers love about Amazon, and which parts can you match or counter in your own way?
Amazon gives two things right away:
But you also inherit the downside: your business is channeled through someone else’s ecosystem. Your moves are limited to whatever Amazon decides is valuable for Amazon’s business. As Damian put it, you become “a part of someone else’s business.”
That is why competing requires a different game, not the same one.
If you are only thinking in one channel, you will keep comparing yourself to Amazon and losing the comparison.
The practical advantage for a brand store is channel capability. Your options are “limitless” compared to a single ecosystem:
This is harder. It needs more business creativity and more thoughtfulness. But it can build a durable moat because you can design your own playbook instead of being constrained by one platform.
Matt’s counterpoint is important: you can still use Amazon as part of the stack. But it becomes much stronger when Amazon is supported by omnichannel demand creation and brand awareness rather than treated as the only engine.
Damian said it clearly: you do not have to beat Amazon on every single field. You just need one or two capabilities you can actually win.
Two capability areas that came up directly:
This is one of the few Amazon strategies you can “steal.”
Amazon sets expectations with speed and customer-first refunds. The takeaway is not to argue with the customer when something goes wrong. If an order is damaged or delayed, do not create friction. Make it easy, respond fast, and treat customer care as the priority.
A big vessel cannot turn quickly. A smaller boat can.
That flexibility shows up everywhere: offer, messaging, operations, and channel mix. It is not about being small forever. It is about using smallness as speed.
Damian’s observation was blunt: “almost 50% of all ecommerce related news” is either directly or indirectly about fulfillment.
That matters because fulfillment is not just “core operational stuff.” It is becoming more important again, and that pressure influences the whole market, including medium and small brands. Even if the news feels “big worldwide,” it touches your business through customer expectations.
One of the clearest shifts discussed is moving from relying on one fulfillment center to operating with multiple locations and a more distributed model.
Matt shared an example from an interview with a UK fulfillment operator who expanded from the UK into Poland and Germany, with France next. The strategy is to grow with clients so they can expand into new countries with fewer surprises. The relationship and trust compound because the fulfillment partner already knows the product, expected volume, and the hazards around shipping specific products.
Two practical takeaways stood out:
Damian added another angle: service providers that help brands “open a virtual instance” of the business in a new market and outsource local fulfillment. That reduces complexity from “ship every order internationally” to “ship larger batches and let local operations handle the rest.”
Amazon is pushing into B2B logistics in a way that is separate from being an Amazon seller. The bigger implication is the pressure it adds to the fulfillment ecosystem.
The open question is not whether Amazon can build it. The open question is whether they will capture enough trust and clients to make the model scale. But either way, it reinforces the same theme: fulfillment is becoming more strategic, more competitive, and more visible to customers.
The discussion touched on Germany as an example where smaller stores saw revenue pressure while larger stores grew.
The practical interpretation from the conversation is less about geography and more about scale dynamics:
But the counterweight is focus. Damian highlighted that for smaller shops, “generalist ecommerce is becoming less viable,” and differentiation plus operational focus becomes mandatory.
If you are smaller or mid-sized, the play is to be more precise:
Pricing in 2026 is not about watching one competitor and reacting.
The conversation emphasized two core ideas:
You usually do not know if a competitor’s pricing is working for them. That is why you need to zoom out and look at broader patterns:
Damian’s deeper point: price is part of a whole business model. It must match your narrative and the full experience (design, speed, offer, fulfillment). Price is subjective, and the purchase decision is the moment your customer “calls” or bounces.
You do not win 2026 ecommerce by trying to become a marketplace.You win by choosing a few capability battles, building omnichannel reach, and treating operations as strategy.
