Small- and medium-sized businesses are selling on marketplaces in order to drive brand awareness and acquire new customers. Amazon in particular has become a top destination for brands: 60% of sales on Amazon come from independent sellers — most of which are small and medium-sized businesses.
In its latest Small Business Empowerment report, Amazon explored how small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. are investing in growth through the platform. Of note, small- and medium-sized businesses sold more than 4.5 billion products in 2023 through Amazon, equating to an average of 8,600 items sold every minute.
According to Natalie Angelillo, Director of External Relations at Amazon, this achievement is more than two decades in the making, and the ecommerce juggernaut is consistently investing in small business tools, as well as consumer capabilities, to become a more strategic partner for SMBs.
“We really started to open the store to our small business sellers 24 years ago, giving them access to our global customer base and allowing them to reach hundreds of millions of customers worldwide,” Angelillo said in an interview with Small Business Xchange. “That did a lot for our [end] customers, obviously, in terms of the selection that we are able to offer, as well as our pricing. But really, the impact on our small businesses is evident in the report and is something we feel very proud about.”
Angelillo played a personal role in understanding this national impact, traveling to different markets to sit down with various sellers whose stories were featured in the report. Ahead of the report’s official release, Angelillo sat down with Small Business Xchange to dig into some of the key findings.
SMB Sellers Exported 330M Items Globally in 2023
Small- and medium-sized businesses exported 27% more items compared to 2022. Additionally, these items were shipped to more than 130 countries globally, according to Angelillo. “For so many of the sellers I spoke to, that was either on their immediate horizon or something that they had already started to do,” she said. “Expanding globally is a daunting thing to think about as a small business, and you’re starting to see how Amazon’s investments year over year are translating into success and sales growth for these businesses.”
Of note, Amazon is investing in creating more educational resources to help sellers understand how to begin their global expansion journey, as well as tools and capabilities to make the process easier. “Things like automated translations for listings, helping them with some of the complicated customs and legal challenges that are required, for example,” Angelillo explained. “We’re starting to see the fruits of those investments and helping sellers tackle some of the most challenging aspects of growing their business globally. You can start a global business from a small town, anywhere — you don’t need to have all that infrastructure around you.”
Amazon SMB Sellers in the U.S. Averaged More Than $250K in Annual Sales
More than 10,000 of Amazon’s independent sellers surpassed $1 million in sales for the first time in 2023, and the group as a whole averaged more than $250,000 in sales for the year. Sellers in more rural states had an especially positive year: Alaska, Florida, Kansas, North Dakota and Utah collectively achieved more than 60% year-over-year sales growth on Amazon.
Over the past year, Amazon has doubled down on new customer- and seller-facing capabilities designed to create more opportunity for small businesses. Product discovery features like the Small Business Search filter and the Support Small shopping page help customers easily discover a unique selection of products from small business brands and artisans. Amazon also has launched new AI tools and capabilities to help sellers easily create high-quality product detail pages, something more than 100,000 sellers have already used to their advantage.
SMB Sellers Created About 1.8M U.S. Jobs in 2023
The nearly 2 million jobs created by Amazon sellers in 2023 largely went toward helping these small businesses manage, operate and support their efforts to sell through Amazon, according to Angelillo. And these new job openings ultimately translated to impact and value for local communities, with sellers in California, New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, generating the most new jobs.
“The success [these small businesses] have selling on Amazon is translating directly into an impact in their local communities,” she said. “I was shocked by the number of small business owners who maybe are still at the very early stages of their business but are thinking about things like creating a multi-generational business or creating a foundation to give back to people in their community. You think about why supporting small businesses is so important, and it’s because they are so connected to the vitality of our communities. We really saw that selling through the Amazon store wasdirectly tied to their ability to invest back into their communities and hire people to create a foundation for their business.”
