Amazon invests $15 billion in tech, support for third-party sellers

2019 was a record-breaking year for third-party sales at Amazon.

The e-tailer launched more than 225 tools and services in 2019 to help third-party sellers, which it says are mostly small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). These tools and services were part of a more than $15 billion global investment Amazon made into third-party seller operations during the year. 

As a result, American SMBs selling in Amazon’s stores broke sales records, with more than 15,000 businesses surpassing $1 million in sales and nearly 25,000 surpassing $500,000 in sales in 2019. Worldwide, nearly 225,000 SMBs surpassed $100,000 in sales in Amazon’s stores in 2019, up from nearly 200,000 in 2018 and more than 140,000 in 2017.

Amazon also invested billions of dollars in Prime free one-day delivery in 2019, driving the largest one-year investment Amazon has ever placed in its Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory management program. Third-party sellers sold more than 700 million items in Amazon’s U.S. store that shipped with Prime free one-day delivery or faster in 2019.

“More than half of the items sold in Amazon’s stores are from small and medium-sized businesses, so our success is deeply tied to their success,” said Nicholas Denissen, VP of small business at Amazon. “In many ways our store is a large collection of small businesses, and we love partnering with them to delight customers. With the investments we’re making, we are giving small businesses around the globe powerful tools and technology to help them reach hundreds of millions of customers and build successful brands.”