What PR Strategy Helps an E-Commerce Brand Win Back Search Visibility From Amazon Competitors?
In April, a group of seven-figure Amazon sellers did something I didn’t expect to see. They boycotted Amazon’s ads for a day.
The group was Million Dollar Sellers, a community of about 800 founders who each do at least $1 million a year on Amazon. They organized the boycott after Amazon announced it would pull ad costs straight out of seller proceeds and stop letting sellers pay by credit card. Co-founder Eugene Khayman told Modern Retail, “This past year, we’ve seen the highest number of [Million Dollar Sellers] members going out of business.”
These are Amazon’s most successful sellers. If they’re feeling the squeeze and your brand depends on Amazon, you’re feeling it too.
The Amazon Tax Keeps Going Up
By 2023, Marketplace Pulse found Amazon took more than 50% of seller revenue once you add up referral, fulfillment and advertising fees. Five years earlier it was about 40%.
The 2026 squeeze hits cash flow on top of fees. In an MDS poll of more than 100 founders, nearly 80% said Amazon’s payment changes would affect at least a quarter of their available cash. One seller told Business Insider he’d counted 16 fee increases, new fees or lost perks since 2021. And Amazon’s seller count dropped from 584,000 to 500,000 between January 2025 and March 2026, according to Marketplace Pulse data reported by AdExchanger.
To add insult to injury, Amazon earns that tax by reducing every product to price. On an Amazon search page, your product sits in a grid beside a dozen products that look just like it. Price and star rating do most of the talking. Amazon sells the ad slots on that same page, so a brand that wants to stand out pays Amazon to do it, and your competitor can buy the slot right next to you.
Search and AI Compare on More Than Price
Google and AI tools answer a different question. When a shopper asks ChatGPT which product in a category is worth the money, the answer draws on reviews and editorial coverage. That gives your brand room to win on quality and reputation, the two things the Amazon grid flattens.
That’s where I focus my e-commerce PR work. Amazon’s own search leans heavily on sales velocity and ad spend, and PR has little pull there. Google and AI are where earned media shapes the answer.
TikTok Creates the Demand. Amazon Catches It.
TikTok has become the discovery engine for product brands. And a lot of the demand it creates ends up on Amazon.
Brandon Himmel, founder of Ruff Liners, told Forbes, “What we’re doing on TikTok is driving a lot of customers to want to get to Amazon and search.” His brand’s search volume on Amazon rose 26% after he launched on TikTok Shop in late 2024.
Sellers call this the TikTok-Amazon halo effect. It works, and I understand why brands chase it. But every sale that halo creates still runs through the Amazon tax. I’d rather see brands build a TikTok-DTC halo, where the demand TikTok creates lands on the brand’s own site.
The Verification Moment
TikTok Shop is incredibly powerful. In my experience it’s also full of junk, and shoppers have learned to be wary of it. When a video sells someone on a brand they’ve never heard of, they go check. They Google the name and add “reviews” or “legit.” They ask an AI tool whether it’s worth buying.
What I see is that shoppers trust Amazon and AI more than TikTok Shop, so that’s where they go to verify. What they find decides where the sale goes. If the only credible results are Amazon listings, they buy on Amazon and you pay the tax. If they find a review in a publication they respect, or a profile of the founder who built the product, your brand earns the trust on its own. A brand the shopper trusts is a brand they’ll buy from directly.
Two Jobs for Earned Media
The first job is filling the reputational gap in AI. AI tools build their answers from sources they consider credible, and independent editorial coverage is one of the strongest signals a brand can earn. When a shopper asks about you, that coverage gives AI something to say beyond your product listing.
The second job is strengthening your own site. Coverage that names your brand and sends readers to your site adds to its authority. So when a shopper searches your name after watching a TikTok video, your site has a better shot at being the answer, and you capture more of the sale.
Both jobs serve the same goal. Your brand becomes the trusted name, whatever platform the shopper found you on. And a stronger DTC business gives you bargaining power with every platform, including the ones you still sell on.
What I Build First
For a product brand fighting marketplace competitors, I start with the coverage a skeptical shopper actually looks for. That means product reviews in publications your buyers already read, and placements in seasonal gift guides from outlets they recognize. Then I build the founder’s story, because a real person behind the product is one of the clearest trust signals a knockoff can’t copy.
When a brand needs that foundation built before a launch or the next gift guide season, I point them to our PR Sprints for consumer product brands.
I learned a lot of this with a home goods client who lost ground to Amazon lookalikes in a category he created. The playbook has grown since then, especially as AI changed how people shop. The principle hasn’t changed: the brand with the most credible third-party sources wins the comparison.
Search Your Brand Like a Stranger From TikTok
Before your next TikTok push, run the searches a curious viewer would run. Try your brand name plus “reviews,” your brand name plus “legit,” and your brand against your closest Amazon competitor. Run them in Google and in ChatGPT. Then look at what comes back:
- Does an Amazon or TikTok Shop listing show up before your own site?
- Does the AI answer cite editorial sources, or only listings and forums?
- Does anything in the results send the shopper to your site?
If Amazon owns those answers, your TikTok budget is funding Amazon’s halo.
If you want to see where your brand stands, start with an assessment. Avaans Media will show you what Google and AI tell shoppers about your brand today, and which sources can move the sale back to you.
