How to sell an Amazon business: what buyers pay for, and how to raise the price

Most founders find out what their Amazon business is worth the hard way: a buyer or broker tells them, and the number is a multiple of a profit figure they have never calculated. It is rarely a multiple of sales, and it is rarely the number they had in mind.

This guide works from the buyer’s side of the table. It covers how buyers value an owner-run Amazon business, what the latest published multiples say, what raises and lowers your multiple, the sale process, how the seller account, Brand Registry and trade marks change hands, and what happened to the aggregators. It is the end of the journey our guide to selling on Amazon in the UK begins, and the reason every guide on this site is judged on net profit. To put your own figures in, use our Amazon business valuation calculator.

How buyers value an Amazon business

SDE or EBITDA

Almost every buyer starts with the same equation: price = yearly earnings × multiple. The argument is about which earnings and which multiple.

The earnings are normally the last 12 months. Empire Flippers calls the 12-month window “the gold standard”; a six-month window is used when a business has changed recently or is young, and it “will result in a lower multiple and less buyer interest"¹.

Add-backs

SDE adds back costs a new owner won’t carry. The usual ones are your own salary, genuinely one-off costs (a rebrand, a legal dispute, a failed product written off) and personal costs run through the company. Every add-back has to survive due diligence, so keep the invoice and a one-line note of why it won’t recur. In our experience, add-backs a buyer can’t verify are simply deducted again, and they cost you credibility on the rest of the numbers.

Advertising is not an add-back. A buyer will look hard at it, though, because ad spend above break-even is profit you could have reported. Our TACoS benchmarks guide shows what buyers will compare yours against.

What multiples look like now

Only use multiples from named, dated sources, and read the small print on each. These are the most recent published figures we could verify:

Four cautions before you use any of these:

• They are averages. Empire Flippers says plainly that no single multiple applies to every Amazon FBA business¹.
• They are mostly small, US, dollar deals. Flippa’s average is dragged down by very small listings; FE International’s figures cover larger deals.
• The earnings bases differ. Empire Flippers multiplies net profit, usually over 12 months¹; FE International uses SDE or EBITDA by size³. A 3× EBITDA and a 3× SDE are not the same price.
• Structure changes the real price. An offer at 3× with a third paid in an earn-out you may not hit can be worth less than 2.5× in cash.

What raises the multiple, and what lowers it

Buyers price risk. Empire Flippers lists the factors it weighs, and calls business age “the most important factor considered when determining a multiple"¹. FE International adds that the strongest candidates in 2026 sell across several channels, and that brand equity separates “a 3x and a 5x+ multiple"³.

Channel concentration and founder dependency are the two we see cost UK sellers most. A buyer who sees 100% of sales from one Amazon account, run day to day by the founder, is buying two risks at once, and prices both.

Robert’s view: Having built and sold an Amazon brand myself, the lesson I would pass on is that the work that raises the price is the same work that makes the business better to own. Start it a year before you want to sell, not when the buyer’s questions arrive.

Every £1 of profit is worth a multiple

Two points of margin and a less founder-dependent business add £162,000 to the price. That is why we judge every Amazon decision on profit after advertising: at exit, each extra £1 of yearly profit is worth £2 to £3 or more. The same logic is behind the exit value in our agency ROI calculator, and our valuation calculator shows what each lever is worth on your own figures.

The sale process

On structure, FE International reports that in aggregator deals the upfront cash now averages 60–75% of the total, with the rest tied to earn-outs over 12 to 24 months³. An earn-out shares the risk of the business after you leave it. Read its targets as carefully as the headline price, and ask who controls the levers, such as advertising budgets and stock, that decide whether you hit them.

Transferring Seller Central, Brand Registry and trade marks

The seller account. Amazon’s Business Solutions Agreement for Europe says: “You may not assign this Agreement, by operation of law or otherwise, without our prior written consent.” The exception is assignment to your own affiliates, on notice to Amazon⁴. In practice that is why many buyers of UK Amazon businesses buy the company that holds the account, so the account stays with the same legal entity under new owners, rather than buying its assets into a different company. Which route suits your deal is a question for your lawyer and accountant; settle it before the letter of intent, because it changes the tax and the paperwork. Either way, expect the new owners to update the account’s business and contact details, and keep the account healthy throughout the handover.

Brand Registry. Brand Registry has protection roles: an Administrator, who can assign roles to users, and a Rights Owner, the trade mark owner or their employee, who can use Report a Violation and the brand protection tools⁵. Amazon’s staff advise that the current brand owner adds the new owner as Administrator and Rights Owner, after which the former owner can be removed⁶. Do it in that order, and only once the trade mark has changed hands.

Trade marks. A UK trade mark is transferred by assignment, recorded with the Intellectual Property Office on form TM16, which costs £60⁷. If the mark is held in your personal name rather than the company’s, fix that well before a sale; a buyer of the company will otherwise find the brand’s most valuable asset is not in it. Our Brand Registry guide covers registration.

Tax. For a UK seller, Business Asset Disposal Relief can reduce the Capital Gains Tax rate to 14% on qualifying disposals between 6 April 2025 and 5 April 2026, and 18% from 6 April 2026, subject to conditions such as holding at least 5% of the shares and voting rights of a trading company and being an officer or employee for at least two years⁸. Take advice early; the conditions are tested over the two years before the sale.

The aggregator landscape since 2022

Between 2020 and 2022, aggregators raised capital to buy Amazon brands in bulk. Marketplace Pulse’s tracker puts the total raised at more than $16bn, with Thrasio alone at $3.4bn¹². Funding then fell away: citing CB Insights, Practical Ecommerce reported that global funding to Amazon aggregators peaked at just over $6bn in 2021 and fell 88% in 2022¹¹.

What followed was consolidation and repair:

• Mergers. In May 2023 SellerX agreed to buy Elevate Brands, and two smaller US aggregators, Suma and D1 Brands, merged¹¹. In March 2024 Razor Group acquired Perch, which it described as the leading US Amazon aggregator, following its earlier purchases of Factory14, Valoreo and The Stryze Group¹⁰.
• Restructuring. On 28 February 2024 Thrasio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, with $90m of new financing from existing shareholders and a deal with lenders to cut $495m from its debt⁹.
• Lower prices, more structure. FE International describes the survivors as having learned that “acquiring brands at 6-7x EBITDA only works if you can actually operate them profitably post-acquisition”, with valuations now at 3–4× for most categories and more of the price in earn-outs³.

For a seller, the lesson is that the buyer pool is now broader and more careful: individual operators, small funds, private equity, strategic buyers and the remaining aggregators. Empire Flippers says its 2025 multiples are back “much closer to what we were seeing in 2019 before the boom took off"¹. Plan on today’s numbers, not 2021’s.

What to do in the year before you sell

1. Measure profit the way a buyer will. Monthly, product by product, after advertising, reconciled to Amazon’s payment reports. The Profit X-Ray is a quick start.
2. Take out spend that doesn’t pay. Advertising above break-even, slow stock paying storage fees, products that lose money. Every £1 recovered is multiplied.
3. Reduce concentration. A second hero product, a second channel, a second supplier.
4. Make yourself optional. Document advertising, buying and customer service, and have someone else run them for at least a few months before the sale.
5. Put the intellectual property in order. Trade marks in the company’s name, Brand Registry roles clean, no listings depending on someone else’s brand.
6. Keep the business growing while you sell. A dip during due diligence costs more than the effort of holding steady.

Robert’s view: The businesses that sell well are run as if they are always for sale, with the numbers ready, the risks named and the owner able to step back. If you build it that way, you may decide not to sell at all, and that is a good position to negotiate from.