Business attributes

Every profile carries three attributes describing how the business is built, alongside the figures describing what it earns: sourcing, catalogue structure and differentiation. They matter because two businesses with identical revenue can be worth very different amounts. A private-label brand with tooling nobody can copy and a retail-arbitrage account with the same monthly profit are not the same asset, and the difference is not visible in the numbers.

Sourcing

How the business gets its product — the single method most of its revenue comes from. It is the strongest signal of what actually transfers in a sale: a brand you own conveys to a buyer, a knack for finding discounted stock does not. Placed by us from the public record, not stated by the seller.

• Private label — the seller puts their own brand on the product and controls its spec. Nobody else sells the identical listing.
• Wholesale — buys an existing branded product in bulk and resells it. Other sellers can list the same product.
• Dropship — lists products it never holds; a third party ships to the customer.
• Arbitrage — buys already-branded products at a discount and resells at a markup, with no ongoing supplier relationship.
• Handmade / artisan — the seller physically makes the product.
• Print on demand — a third-party print service fulfils a listing the seller owns.
• Merch on Demand — Amazon's closed royalty programme; Amazon sets the price.
• KDP — Amazon's publishing royalty programme, for books and similar.

Catalogue structure

The shape of the catalogue: whether revenue rests on one product, a handful, a long tail of variations, or a portfolio with no anchor. It tells a buyer what running the business involves day to day, and where it breaks if a single listing stalls.

• Broad catalogue, low volume each — many SKUs, each aimed at a small slice of search demand.
• Flagship + complementary — one dominant product, with adjacent products sold alongside it.
• Concentrated bets, few SKUs — a handful of independently significant products with no filler.
• Category dominance — most or all major variations within one narrow category.
• Trend / seasonal churn — launch against a trend, ride it, retire it, launch the next one.
• Generalist portfolio — products spread across unrelated categories with no anchor.

Differentiation

How hard the product is for a competitor to copy. The principle is that complexity, cost and time spent make a product defensible — and that the uniqueness has to be visible to the customer. A factual checklist rather than a rating: the questions are answered in order and the level is the first one that gets a yes.

• Level 1 — standard product — off-the-shelf with a logo on it; a competitor orders the same base unit from the same factory within days.
• Level 2 — cosmetic variation — visible changes to form, copyable by requesting a variant from the same manufacturer.
• Level 3 — functional customisation — several real changes to form, features or materials. Copying it means re-sourcing components and re-engineering.
• Level 4 — hard to copy — fully custom, protected by manufacturing complexity or IP; typically a mould, tooling or a patent.

Where these appear

All three sit under Additional metrics on a profile. None can be read off a set of figures and none is worth guessing, so a profile we have not placed shows a question mark rather than an answer. A question mark means nobody has placed it yet — not that the answer is none, and not a judgement about the business.