Amazon Business: Supporting Firms of all Shapes and Sizes
As one of the largest companies in the world, Amazon is well positioned to use its far-reaching influence to make doing business more straightforward for smaller firms.
Amazon Business is the organisation’s dedicated procurement solution in this space, helping leaders across the globe to reshape their purchasing processes and drive growth.
Users can choose from millions of products, manage purchase invoices and benefit from exclusive features tailored to their individual needs.
Like all successful companies, Amazon Business is constantly looking for new ways to evolve, and demonstrated this with the launch of a feature entitled ‘Prefer Small and Medium Enterprises’, enabling business customers in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy to make targeted purchases from SMEs that sell on the platform.
And it’s not just in Europe where Amazon’s procurement arm is making an impact. The division has officially launched for the first time in Mexico, expanding its presence in North America.
Targeted purchasing from SMEs
SMEs form a key pillar of the economy, but research from Amazon Business’ recent State of Procurement Data Report revealed a significant proportion of owners aren’t sure how best to scale their businesses online.
However, enterprise customers buying on Amazon Business have drastically increased their year-on-year spending with SME selling partners, demonstrating the practice as a strategic priority.
With the new feature, procurement professionals in much of Europe are able to search for and identify sellers with fewer than 250 employees and less than €50 million revenue when purchasing supplies.
SMEs selling on Amazon Business range from regional suppliers to small, family-owned firms that can supply enterprise customers with the materials they require.
“We’re excited that this new feature will enable our customers to address two of the challenges they are currently facing,” comments Fabricio Pedroza, Director for Amazon Business in the UK.
“Firstly, B2B e-commerce provides significant growth opportunities, but SMEs have struggled to sell their products to multinational enterprises, often because they lack the resources or knowledge to reach them.
“At the same time, we know from our enterprise and public customers that they want to buy more from SMEs in order to support strategic procurement goals such as diversifying their supplier base and mitigating risk, specifically in the public sector where organisations face new legislative goals.”
Amazon Business launches in Mexico
Meanwhile, Amazon has strengthened its commitment to supporting Mexican businesses and meeting the sourcing needs of organisations of all sizes.
Customers can now enjoy benefits including business-only pricing on eligible selection, single or multi-user business accounts and dedicated customer support.
Mexico is the 10th country where Amazon Business has launched, following on from the US, Canada, India, Japan and the aforementioned European nations.
“We’re excited to support Mexican business customers in simplifying their business buying processes so they can focus on what’s most important to them,” adds Pedro Huerta, Amazon Mexico Country Manager.
“We’re also committed to the growth of small businesses by enabling third-party sellers—through our business-to-business store—to expand and grow by selling directly to companies of all sizes.
“This is especially relevant for SMEs as Amazon Mexico has almost 18,000 domestic sellers today, 99% of which are SMEs with more than three million listed products, generating more than 57,000 direct and indirect jobs.”
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