Vol: 15, Issue: 3 2025

Page: 181-192

The Platform Trade-Off: Nike’s Amazon Exit and the Restructuring of Control, Margin, and Customer Ownership From 2019-2024

Shauryaraj Patel

Received Date: 2025-07-15

Accepted Date: 2025-09-08

Published Date: 2025-09-13

http://doi.org/10.37648/ijtbm.v15i03.013

In 2019, Nike made the most radical move to date, breaking away from Amazon to develop its Consumer Direct Offense strategy further. It was a strategy that focused on greater brand control, high profits, and owning consumer data through proprietary properties, including the Nike App and SNKRS. The early period of this strategic turn out proved quite promising; direct-to-consumer revenues experienced remarkable growth, digital interaction began to accelerate, and investor confidence drove the company's stock to an unprecedented level. By 2023-2024, the model, however, pointed to underlying structural constraints. Digital revenues grew more slowly, competition intensified, and consumers flocked towards websites that provided more convenience and price visibility. What started as a bold experiment in platform independence revealed weaknesses regarding scalability and long-term resilience.

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