Designed to move your valuation multiple from the 2.5x baseline to 4x or higher: SDE maximisation, operational documentation, buyer-aligned positioning, and go-to-market preparation including broker selection.
The 2021 gold rush is over — and pretending otherwise costs sellers real money. Aggregators that once paid 4–6x SDE for any decent FBA brand have consolidated, pulled back, or gone through Chapter 11; today’s buyers price 30–40% below those peak multiples, and most FBA businesses now trade at 2.5–4x SDE.
But the top quartile still commands 5–7x — through systematic pre-sale optimisation, not luck. The premium goes to brands where no single ASIN carries more than 20–30% of revenue, financials are accrual-clean, operations are documented, and there is proof of life off Amazon. One published analysis puts the return on pre-sale financial clean-up at 10–20x its cost in valuation impact.
Today’s buyer pool — the remaining aggregators, PE-backed platforms, family offices, strategics — runs 60 to 180 days of diligence. The programme spends 24 months making sure every question they ask has a documented answer, then runs the go-to-market including broker selection.
Data: 2025–2026 FBA transaction analyses (CT Acquisitions, Titan Network, sellerboard); ranges are market-typical.
The staircase buyers actually pay for: each step is a de-risking move — clean SDE, spread ASINs, documented operations, off-Amazon proof.
Seven questions buyers will ask. Directional — the programme replaces this with a full buyer’s-eye valuation bridge.
Every quarter of preparation compounds. Start the conversation 12–36 months before you want the wire.
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