Introduction

Every Amazon seller dreams of seeing their sales climb steadily month after month. But what happens when the growth stops? You check your Seller Central dashboard, and the numbers aren’t moving anymore. Sales are stuck at the same level, and no matter how much you spend on ads or how often you refresh your listings, nothing seems to push you forward.

This is what’s known as a sales plateau, and it’s one of the most frustrating challenges for brands selling on Amazon. It often happens once you’ve built some momentum, but before you’ve reached your real growth potential. Sellers find themselves asking questions like: Why are my Amazon FBA sales flat? or How do I increase Amazon sales without lowering my price?

At Bits & Atoms, we’ve seen this scenario many times. In fact, one of our clients faced a plateau at around $100K in monthly sales. Despite strong products, they couldn’t break through. In this case study, we’ll walk you through exactly how we helped them overcome this ceiling by addressing core issues around inventory, PPC, and listing optimization.

By the end, you’ll learn actionable strategies on how to overcome an Amazon sales plateau, why these plateaus happen, and what you can do to restart your growth trajectory in 2025 and beyond.

Understanding Why Sales Plateaus Happen on Amazon

Sales plateaus rarely come out of nowhere. More often than not, they’re the result of recurring operational and marketing issues that compound over time.

For growing Amazon sellers, the most common reasons include:

• Running out of stock: When your bestsellers aren’t available, not only do you lose sales, but you also lose ranking momentum.
  
• Seasonality: Amazon’s algorithm responds strongly to seasonal demand. Products that perform well in peak seasons get a ranking boost, while those that miss momentum during those periods often struggle to recover. Without proactive planning, sellers may misread seasonal dips as structural problems.
  
• Advertising budget misalignment: Amazon PPC performance depends on how budgets are distributed. Many sellers over-invest in SKUs that are already performing well while underfunding newer or strategic products that need visibility. This imbalance limits account-wide growth and makes it harder to capture long-term market share.
  
• Increased competition: As more sellers enter a category, especially during peak seasons, competition for both visibility and ad placements intensifies, which can stall growth.
  
• Low conversion rates: A product page that doesn’t convert well wastes traffic and ad spend, and over time, Amazon’s algorithm pushes it down in search results.
  
• Algorithm shifts: Amazon’s A10 algorithm now weighs customer experience and performance KPIs more heavily than ever. Metrics such as CTR and CVR directly influence visibility. A product that converts well and engages shoppers is rewarded with stronger rankings. On the other hand, negative signals, like rising return rates, can also hurt rankings, sometimes even leading to a “Frequently returned” badge that lowers shopper trust and click-throughs.

These factors tend to hit hardest when a seller is in growth mode. You’ve built some traction but haven’t yet solidified systems for inventory management, PPC efficiency, and listing optimization. 

The result? Sales plateau, and growth stalls.

This is exactly what happened with one of our clients.

The Case Study: A Client Stuck at $100K/Month

One of our clients had grown quickly to about $100K in monthly revenue. For many sellers, that’s an exciting milestone, but for this brand, it became a ceiling they couldn’t break.

The problems became clear after our audit:

• Stock management: Their top-selling SKUs repeatedly went out of stock, causing them to lose Buy Box ownership and drop in search rankings.
  
• Ad performance limitations: Campaigns were running, but there was an opportunity to make them more efficient by aligning them with the audiences driving the most value. For brands with many SKUs, budgets often concentrate on top performers. While this keeps momentum for bestsellers, it leaves newer SKUs underfunded and without the visibility needed to grow. If campaign budgets aren’t aligned with overall account goals, potential market share goes uncaptured and sales stall.
  
• Content opportunity: Listings had potential to perform better once tailored to the B2B audience, with messaging and structure that spoke directly to business buyers. By embracing this audience with tailored content and promotions, the listings were repositioned to communicate business value more clearly and capture higher-intent demand.

After a lot of research, we uncovered several untapped opportunities, and after testing and scaling these opportunities based on insights and data we gathered, this change systematically drove the growth of the account.

Fixing the Inventory Bottleneck

The first and most urgent issue was inventory. No matter how good your ads or listings are, you can’t make sales if your products aren’t in stock.

We dug into their FBA reports and saw that their most popular items consistently ran out during peak demand. Stockouts are a challenge every growing seller faces, and they impact much more than immediate sales. Each time bestsellers went out of stock, rankings and sales velocity took a hit, and campaigns lost efficiency. The real insight, however, was that it wasn’t only about how much inventory was available, but how it was distributed across fulfillment centers. Without proper disbursement, delivery times lengthened, CVR dropped, and rankings slipped. By focusing on accurate forecasting and smarter inventory placement, we safeguarded availability, protected rankings, and built a more resilient foundation for growth.

Our approach focused on three priorities:

• Increase FBA stock levels: We collaborated with the client to raise restock limits and ensure enough units were available to cover demand spikes.
  
• Improve forecasting: We built a data-driven inventory planning process, aligning shipments not only with overall demand but also with seasonal peaks.
  
• Optimize disbursement: We worked to distribute inventory more effectively across Amazon’s fulfillment network, ensuring better coverage across several regions. This shortened delivery times and supported stronger CVR and rankings.

The result? Sales velocity stabilized almost immediately. With products consistently available across regions and seasons, rankings recovered, campaigns performed more efficiently, and revenue began trending upward again.

Shifting Strategy Toward the B2B Audience

Performance analysis revealed a valuable insight: B2B buyers were driving stronger engagement, higher conversion rates, and larger average order values. By leaning into this audience, ad performance improved not just in sales volume but also in overall profitability.

To capture this opportunity, we built special audiences using Amazon’s B2B insights and the data available through AMC. At Bits & Atoms, we differentiate ourselves by leveraging AMC access through Pacvue. AMC taps into Amazon’s vast historical data, allowing us to design highly specific custom audiences and apply them directly to campaigns. This gave us the ability to refine targeting with precision and reach high-value business customers more effectively. Alongside this, we leveraged Amazon Business Exclusive Sponsored Products campaigns, ensuring our ads appeared directly in front of business shoppers on the Amazon Business store.

Here’s what changed:

• Inventory management: ensured stock levels and distribution could support larger B2B orders without disruption.
  
• Content & listing optimization: tailored messaging to address business buyers’ needs and workflows.
  
• Business pricing & discount tiers: implemented across products to strengthen bulk-buy value.
  
• B2B campaigns: launched and scaled, with bid strategies adjusted to focus on business hours.
  
• Amazon Business placements: combined retail and business placements to maximize exposure and returns.
  
• Exclusive Sponsored Products campaigns: leveraged to target B2B shoppers directly within the Amazon Business store.

This wasn’t about spending more on ads. It was about realigning inventory, content, pricing, and campaigns with the audience already showing buying intent — and using Amazon’s tools and data to capture them more effectively.

The result: conversion rates rose, CPC dropped, AOV increased, and sales momentum returned.

Improving Conversion Rates Through Better Content

With inventory and campaigns in place, the next step was making sure the product pages worked as hard as possible. The key was aligning content with the true audience driving growth, B2B buyers.

We took a data-first approach. Through keyword analysis, we identified which modifiers and terms were consistently converting. We combined these insights with campaign feedback and ranking data, then restructured listings to highlight the value that mattered most to business customers.

Our adjustments focused on three areas:

• Keyword-optimized titles: integrated the most effective B2B search terms and modifiers.
  
• Benefit-driven bullets: emphasized cost efficiency, reliability, and bulk value instead of generic features.
  
• Visuals & tailored promotions: showcased professional use cases and reinforced business pricing and offers designed for bulk buyers.

The outcome: conversion rates increased significantly among business customers, amplifying ad efficiency and accelerating growth.

Strengthening SEO for Long-Term Growth

Short-term adjustments created momentum, but sustainable growth came from reinforcing the client’s B2B positioning through SEO.

We aligned optimization not just with broad category terms, but with the actual language business buyers used on Amazon. By combining deep keyword research, campaign performance data, and ranking insights, we identified the long-tail B2B terms and modifiers that consistently drove conversions.

Our SEO work focused on three pillars:

• Strategic keyword integration: titles, bullets, and backend fields were rewritten to maximize indexing for Amazon Business-related queries.
  
• Long-tail B2B focus: uncovered terms tied to bulk orders, commercial use cases, and business workflows.
  
• Continuous optimization: tracked keyword positions and adapted strategy as buyer behavior shifted over time.

For this work we used Helium 10, our preferred tool for keyword tracking, competitor research, and listing analysis. It gave us the insights needed to refine the SEO strategy and keep pace with how business buyers search.

The payoff was clear: as B2B-focused keywords climbed in ranking, reliance on PPC decreased, organic sales grew, and the plateau was left behind.

Check out Helium 10 here. We recommend it for sellers who want deeper visibility into keyword and competitor performance. (Affiliate offer: 20% Off for 6 Months or 10% Off Every Month with our coupon.)

Key Lessons for Amazon Sellers Facing a Plateau

If you’re staring at flat sales and wondering how to push through, here are the key takeaways from this case:

• Never run out of stock: Protect your sales velocity at all costs. Forecast demand accurately and ensure inventory is well-distributed across Amazon’s network.
  
• Align ad budgets with account goals: Campaign efficiency comes from more than cutting costs. By aligning budgets to the right audiences and SKUs, you can capture both short-term sales and long-term growth.
  
• Optimize for the right audience: In this case, tailoring content, pricing, and campaigns for B2B buyers unlocked higher AOV and stronger profitability.
• Invest in SEO with audience intent in mind: Organic rankings grow stronger when listings reflect the actual search language of your buyers, including long-tail B2B terms and modifiers.
  
• Think holistically: Breakthroughs happen when inventory, ads, content, and targeting are aligned into a system that works together.

FAQs

Why do Amazon sales often plateau around certain revenue levels?
Because operational challenges (like inventory, seasonality, or returns) and advertising misalignment compound at scale. Growth requires better systems, not just more ad spend.

How can I increase Amazon sales without lowering my price?
By strengthening your value story. For B2B, this often means highlighting ROI, business pricing, and bulk savings.

What’s the best way to improve conversion rates on Amazon?
Tailor your content to your real audience. For B2B, that means emphasizing reliability, discounts, and commercial use cases.

Are external traffic strategies worth it for smaller brands?
Yes. Even modest efforts from LinkedIn, TikTok, or email can boost rankings and supplement Amazon’s internal traffic.

What role does Amazon’s A10 algorithm play in rankings today?
It emphasizes customer experience, seller authority, and relevance. Strong CTR, CVR, and low return rates push products up; weak signals push them down.

Conclusion

For our client, the sales plateau at $100K/month wasn’t permanent. By safeguarding inventory, pivoting advertising toward B2B audiences, and reshaping listings and SEO with business buyers in mind, we helped them break through to the next level of growth.

At the end of the day, hitting a plateau isn’t the end of the world. If the goals you’ve set are being met and your account is performing steadily, a plateau can simply mean your systems are working. But if your business goals rely on continuous growth, then a plateau is a signal to reassess, uncover opportunities, and take action.

If you’re stuck in a similar place, the same strategies can work for you too.Want expert help applying these strategies to your brand? Book a call with our team.