Amazon today published the 2019 Amazon SMB Impact Report highlighting the growth of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) selling on Amazon globally.
Millions of SMBs from around the world are thriving by selling on Amazon’s stores, says the report. In fact, more than half of all units purchased on Amazon come from these businesses. Third-party gross physical merchandise sales – primarily comprised of SMBs selling in Amazon’s stores – surpassed $160 billion in 2018.
In 2018 alone, more than 50,000 SMBs exceeded $500,000 in sales on Amazon’s stores worldwide, and nearly 200,000 surpassed $100,000 in sales on Amazon. That’s up from 140,000 in 2017 and 100,000 in 2016. The number of SMBs eclipsing $1 million in sales on Amazon’s stores worldwide grew by 20%. That’s up from more than 20,000 in 2017.
Amazon SMB Impact Report on US sellers
On average in 2018, US-based SMBs sold more than 4,000 items per minute on Amazon’s stores and earned more than $90,000 (£68,715). Last year saw Amazon lending US-based SMBs more than $1 (£0.76) billion to build inventory and support their Amazon stores.
Growth across Amazon’s businesses
The report also revealed findings from across Amazon’s businesses. More than 1.9 million SMBs including content creators and developers in the US are currently working with Amazon. SMBs selling on Amazon’s stores have created an estimated 1.6 million jobs worldwide. That’s up from 900,000 in 2017. Thousands of independent authors earned more than $50,000, with more than a thousand surpassing $100,000 in royalties in 2018. Amazon gave more than $500 million in AWS credits to help startups accelerate their growth and development in 2018.
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) sees Amazon authors’ growth
KDP is enabling authors to publish and distribute their books to millions of readers globally. In 2018, authors earned more than $260 (£198) million from the Kindle Direct Publishing Select Global Fund. That’s more than $840 million since the launch of Kindle Unlimited. Since launch in 2007, hundreds of thousands of authors from around the world have self-published millions of books through KDP.
“Amazon’s mission is to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. Among the customers we’re focused on are small businesses and entrepreneurs. As we work to help them grow their businesses, we are making big investments: in our delivery network, data centers, AI research, robotics. Since 2011, we’ve invested tens of billions to help SMBs succeed working with Amazon. Amazon is inspired by the type of courage and inventiveness that makes entrepreneurs tick. And our customers benefit from the products, books, videos and skills they produce. We salute the millions of entrepreneurs, creators, and developers around the world whose impressive efforts are summarized in this report.”
– Jeff Wilke, chief executive officer, Amazon Worldwide Consumer
