Amazon Says More Than a Million U.S. Small Businesses Sell on Its Site

Paris Marquez

TOA: Amazon Says More Than a Million U.S. Small Businesses Sell on Its Site

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-says-more-than-a-million-u-s-small-businesses-sell-on-its-site-1525341606

Published: May 3, 2018

 Summary: Amazon is the second biggest company by market value behind apple right now, and it has over a one million small businesses who use amazons’ marketplace online to sell their products. Amazon is based in Seattle, and they based their statement on having over one million small businesses based on numbers that qualify a business to be considered a ‘Small Business’. If a company makes 7.5 million a year or less, then they are considered a small business. Therefore amazon does in fact have over one million small businesses that use their online marketplace. “Amazon relies on independent merchants to generate more than half of all units sold on its site. Those sales are frequently more profitable for Amazon than sales of items from its own inventory, and help it avoid inventory risk.”

Analysis: This is a company who has built its way to the top off making smart investments and outsmarted the market. As the quote in the summary states, Amazon face little to know risk in terms of customer backlash due to the fact that they are selling other companies products and not their own inventory. This story is useful for our marketing course because we all want to be able to market our business one day, and being able to collect information on one of the top companies in the world will only build our knowledge of how to run a business. The company has also helped market themselves by sharing with the world via social media that by next year their numbers predict that they will be able to offer 130,000 full time- part time jobs to Americans. And this is a great marketing move because it gives the perception to consumers and the economy that if the business keeps growing then there will be more job opportunities Americans.