2021
Amazon Small Business
Empowerment Report
October 2021
Introduction
H
undreds of millions of customers shop
for products in Amazon’s store. Those
products are sold by many sellers, including
Amazon Retail and nearly 2 million small
and medium-sized businesses that are our
third-party selling partners.
Over 20 years ago, we made the decision to open
our store’s virtual shelves to third-party sellers. At
the time, big-box retailers had been pushing small
businesses out of the retail market. But we made a bet
that bringing selling partners into our store would not
only be a win for customers who want vast product
selection, low prices, and fast delivery, but it would also
be a win for small businesses that want to reach more
customers, increase their revenue and pro its, and
create good jobs. It proved to be a great bet. Today,
products from small and medium-sized businesses
account for more than half of everything sold in our
store.
Our decision kicked off an industry trend that has
resulted in small businesses having a range of options
when deciding how and where to sell their products.
Small businesses now have the opportunity to sell to
customers through the sites of major retailers, their own
sites, third-party-only marketplaces, and through the
top social media and search services. We know sellers
have lots of options, and we work hard to make Amazon
the best partner to help drive their success.
Every day, we see our selling partners provide great
product selection, low prices, and convenience for
customers. That’s why we invested more than $18
billion in selling partner success last year. These
investments included logistics, teams, services,
programs, and tools like Brand Follow and Stores that
allow sellers to connect their brands directly to millions
of customers. Last year, while many other companies
passed along the increased costs of doing business
during the pandemic through surcharges and fee
changes, we absorbed over $5 billion of those costs on
behalf of sellers and have continued investing billions
more this year to help sellers as we all work toward
recovery. These investments help selling partners
quickly launch their business on Amazon, scale and
reach more customers, and establish and build their
brands.
This Small Business Empowerment Report shares more
about our investments in seller success and how our
selling partners are beneting as a result. We continue
to be inspired by our sellers’ entrepreneurial spirit,
resourcefulness, and creativity, especially as we all
persevere through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our success depends on the success of our selling
partners. Amazon’s work with third-party sellers is one
of the greatest partnership stories in retail. Together,
we make a great team. As always, it’s Day 1 for us as
we continue to listen to our selling partners and invent
on their behalf.
—Dave Clark, CEO,
Amazon Worldwide Consumer
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Ready. Set. Sell!
Amazon allows anyone with a great product idea to start selling online to consumers and businesses across the
globe. We provide sellers with extensive guidance and training to help them list their products and begin managing
a business. Our New Seller Success team helps them launch their products in our store and develops a tailored plan
that meets the needs of new sellers.
Sellers select from one of two selling plans—individual or professional—based on how many items they intend
to sell per month. After choosing a selling plan, sellers provide their business, identity, and payment information
to Amazon, which vets their submission. Once fully vetted, approved, and registered, sellers have access to Seller
Central and the Amazon Seller mobile app, which act as portals to their Amazon business and enable them to easily
manage their selling account.
200,000+ new
sellers
In 2020, more than 200,000 new
third-party sellers from around the
world
began selling in our U.S. store.
This represents a 45% increase over
the previous year, as selling in
Amazon’s store provided
a lifeline to small businesses during
COVID-19.
Connecting sellers
with customers
Dedicated programs and storefronts
help connect sellers and their brands
with customers, such as Amazon.com/
SupportSmall to shop from small
businesses, Amazon Handmade for
unique artisan-made products and
Amazon Launchpad for innovative
small brands.
What are Seller
Central and the
Amazon Seller
mobile app?
Once sellers register with Amazon, they have access to
Seller Central and the Amazon Seller mobile app, the go-
to resources for selling on Amazon. Sellers can manage
their Amazon business, add product information, make
inventory updates, manage prices, and nd helpful
content to run their Amazon business.
Sellers use the Amazon Seller mobile app to track sales,
fulll orders, nd products to sell, respond to customer
questions, and capture and edit professional-quality
product photos, all from their phone.
With Selling Partner APIs and the Selling Partner app
store, sellers can automate their business operations by
integrating with other software programs and third-
party solutions.
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3,000+ Seller
University courses
We have more than 3,000 total Seller University
courses available, which have been viewed more
than 9 million times. New courses for 2020 include
“Best practices for products sold on Amazon,” “Tips
for improving customer service and satisfaction
on Amazon,” and “Understanding Amazon’s
intellectual property policies.”
10 million selling tips
To help sellers discover and adopt ways to grow
their businesses, the new Explore Programs section
of Seller Central provides articial intelligence-
based recommendations and educational content
about tools and services provided by Amazon.
Explore Programs delivered more than 10 million
recommendations to sellers in 2020.
Meeting customer
demand
Every year, Amazon emails, texts, and posts billions
of business suggestions to sellers about products,
inventory, pricing, branding, and more to help
them drive more customer demand and interest.
30,000 hours of
how-to content
In 2020 at Amazon Accelerate, our largest-ever U.S.
event dedicated to helping sellers succeed in our
store, thousands of entrepreneurs, small business
leaders, and brand owners consumed over 30,000
hours of streaming content across more than 65
sessions over three days.
Ready. Set. Sell!
—Kyle Robertson, BlueZone Sports
“When COVID-19 hit, BlueZone was forced
to temporarily close all of its physical
stores and downsize from 75 employees
to 12. After going all-in on Amazon in
April 2020, BlueZone now has more
employees and more brick-and-mortar
locations than we did pre-pandemic,
thanks to growth on Amazon.”
Seller Insights
—Laurie McCabe, SMB Group
“Selling online is now table stakes for
any small business—whether it’s brand-
new or already established. Amazon is a
launchpad for small businesses to quickly
set up shop—and Seller Central provides
all the tools they need to manage and
grow their business.”
Expert Insights
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Small Businesses, Big Capabilities
A
mazon helps small businesses do what big businesses do. It takes a lot to run a small business, but partnering
with Amazon allows sellers to benet from Amazon’s scale. They can ocus on their own brand and products rather
than on logistics, warehouses, fulfillment, customer service, and the many other sometimes-exhausting aspects of
business ownership. Sellers can reach our hundreds of millions of customers and leverage our global operations,
cost efficiencies, tools, and services to grow quickly. They can tap into our world-class logistics network, customer
service, and powerful data insights to enable their business to maximize sales.
30%+ lower
shipping costs
Half of all American selling partners took advantage
of Fulllment by Amazon (FBA), through which
Amazon stores, packs, picks, and ships orders for
sellers from fulllment centers around the world. On
average, shipping with FBA is more than 30% lower
in cost compared to other shipping providers.
70,000+ new
sellers adopt FBA
We invested tens of millions of dollars into the new
FBA New Selection program, which has helped
more than 70,000 U.S. sellers adopt FBA with
almost no added costs.
20–25% sales
increase with FBA
On average, sellers see a 20–25%
increase in sales after adopting FBA.
130 customer
support sites
Sellers can leverage Amazon’s world-class
customer service network to manage customer
inquiries, refunds, and returns for FBA orders.
Customers can contact our more than 130
customer support sites via phone, chat or email,
day or night, and receive help in 15 languages.
What is Fulllment
by Amazon (FBA)?
Fulllment is the process of
getting products to customers,
as well as handling returns and
exchanges. Fast and reliable
fulllment delights customers.
With FBA, sellers can leave it to
Amazon and send their products
to Amazon’s fulllment centers,
where we pick, pack, ship, and
provide customer service for
those products. Sellers that
leverage FBA are also eligible for
same-day, one-day, and two-day
Prime delivery.
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50% more
fulfillment and logistics
network space
In 2020, we inc
reased square footage across our
fulfillment and logistics network by about 50%,
opening dozens of new delivery stations and
fulfillment centers around the world. We also hired
more than 450,000 new employees across our
fulfillment and transportation network to expand
the operations team that supports selling partners.
A second life for 300
million products
The new FBA Liquidations and FBA Grade and Resell
programs help sellers recover value and avoid losses
by allowing them to resell returned and overstock
inventory as used products or liquidate products in
bulk via Amazon partners and technology. We
expect these programs to give 300 million more
products a second life each year, and they build on
FBA Donations, an easy, automatic way for sellers to
donate their returned or overstock inventory.
20,000 U.S. sellers
launched globally
Last year, 20,000 U.S. sellers launched globally to
accelerate international sales using our worldwide
network.
$245 million
in savings for sellers
Amazon launched the Seller Messaging Assistant,
an automated customer service agent that provides
customers with fast, high-quality answers to their
customer service questions. Seller Messaging
Assistant has automatically resolved 49 million
customer issues and saved sellers an estimated
$245 million in handling costs so far this year.
$700 million to protect
from fraud
In 2020, we invested over $700 million and
employed more than 10,000 people to protect our
store from fraud and the abuse of customers and
sellers. Our investment led to some of the lowest
fraud rates in the industry and protected sellers
from frivolous and unsubstantiated claims.
Small Businesses, Big Capabilities
Expert Insights
—Gene Marks, The Marks Group
“By partnering with Amazon, small businesses
can look and execute like a big business.
Amazon’s scale can be a very benecial
engine for a small business.”
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Seller Insights
—Kennedy Lowry, Live by Being
“Using Fulllment by Amazon to
manage storing and shipping my orders has
been invaluable to my company’s growth. Because
I can outsource those tasks, I’ve been able to scale
at a rate I wouldn’t have otherwise thought possible
as a small business owner just three years into
running my company. In the midst of a pandemic,
my sales were up 55% over the previous year
and I’m forecasting that I will at least double
my revenue numbers this year.”
Building Brands Together
We continually innovate to make our store the best place for brands to connect with customers. In 2020, we
launched more than 250 tools and services to help selling partners manage and grow their businesses.
440,000+ brands
More than 440,000 brands are enrolled in Brand
Registry, a free service that gives brand owners a
set of powerful tools that helps them manage and
protect their brand and intellectual property rights.
300,000+ sellers
are using Stores
Stores, a free multi-page branded storefront,
empowers brands to create a customizable
destination that tells their brand story and provides
a place for Amazon customers to both learn about
their company and discover their full range of
products. More than 300,000 sellers are currently
using Stores to connect with customers.
Brand followers spend
more than double
Brand Follow helps sellers boost sales and
customer loyalty by allowing customers to follow
their brand, increasing their visibility in Amazon’s
store. Customers who follow a brand on Amazon
spend more than double that of non-followers.
What are branded Stores?
Stores is an Amazon tool that allows sellers to showcase
their brands and products in a multipage, immersive
shopping experience on Amazon. Sellers create and
customize a dedicated brand destination on Amazon with
a self-service Store at no additional cost, helping customers
learn their brand story and discover their products. The
Stores insights dashboard provides sellers with a powerful
understanding of Stores-related sales, visits, page views,
and trac sources both on and o Amazon.
Expert Insights
—Brent Leary, CRM Essentials
“The customer experience
starts at discovery and continues
through delivery. Amazon simplies that
process for brands, allowing them to
focus more on creating innovative ways
to stand out from the pack.“
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Building Brands Together
Optimize to drive sales
Manage Your Experiments lets brands test
content that appeals to Amazon customers and
ultimately helps
drive more sales. Over the last
year, thousands of sellers have used Manage Your
Experiments to maximize product listings.
500,000 sellers use
Brand Analytics
Brand Analytics oers valuable insights to
empower brand owners to make informed,
strategic decisions about their product
portfolio, marketing, and advertising
activities. Over the last year, more than
500,000 sellers have used this tool to
accelerate the growth of their brands.
New IP protection
for 7,000+ sellers
We have connected more than 7,000
sellers to trusted law rms in the U.S. and
Europe through IP Accelerator to provide
trusted guidance at competitive rates to
help sellers establish and protect their
intellectual property.
Improve
protability
The new Brand Referral Bonus program helps sellers
improve protability by providing bonuses on sales
that were generated by marketing and advertising
outside of Amazon. When sellers bring customer
trac to Amazon, they earn bonuses averaging 10%
of sales of their products.
Shop local, virtually
Amazon Explore allows small business sellers to
host customers for virtual visits and experiences
at their neighborhood shops to share their stories.
Amazon Explore includes one-to-one, personalized
experiences that make it easier for customers to
discover new brands and unique products, and
shop from the comfort of their home.
Seller Insights
—Dean-Paul Hart, Compac Industries
“We have grown year over year for over
10 years with Amazon, but so much
more during the past year as customers
have been able to nd, try, and become
loyal to our brands and products. With
options such as Subscribe and Save,
Brand Pages, Advertising, Amazon
Live, and many other tools, Amazon
allows us to share our solutions with
customers worldwide.”
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World-class Support
Every day, our global teams work to provide selling partners with the
strategies, answers, guidance, programs, and solutions they need to
succeed in our store. We also invest heavily in putting sellers front and
center in our store so customers can nd them and their products
during Prime Day, the holidays, and throughout the year.
24,000+ Amazonians
We have more than 24,000 Amazonians focused
on supporting and inventing for selling partners.
$150 million to support
Black businesses
This year, we launched our Black Business Accelerator
and committed $150 million to providing access to
capital, business guidance, mentorship, and marketing
support to help Black business owners succeed as
sellers in Amazon’s store.
$800 million in lending
to help sellers grow
Year to date, Amazon and third-party lending
partners have lent more than $800 million to SMBs
in the U.S. to support their growth.
Expert Insights
—Aaron Cheris, Bain & Company
“Amazon’s third-party seller program has been an
incredible success for both Amazon and the ever-
growing set of sellers and insurgent brands.”
9 2021 SMALL BUSINESS EMPOWERMENT REPORT
6,200 vetted
service providers
The Seller Central Partner Network now oers
more than 6,200 Amazon-vetted service providers
and tools which are used by more than 1 million
sellers worldwide to help sellers build, manage,
automate, and scale their business.
$100 million invested
for small business success
during Prime Day
We invested an additional $100 million to
encourage customers to shop with small business
sellers on Prime Day and throughout 2021. Prime
Day 2021 was the biggest two-day period ever for
Amazon’s third-party sellers. Additionally, during
the two-week lead-up to Prime Day, customers
spent over $1.9 billion on more than 70 million
items, which was more than a 100% year-over-
year increase on sales compared to the Prime Day
2020 promotion in October.
Seller Insights
—Sara Mader, Palouse Brand
“The growth we experienced last
year helped Palouse Brand put
people to work who lost their jobs
during the pandemic. We provided
our new employees with medical,
dental, vision, and other benets.
The positive community impact
we’ve had in our small, rural town
is what we’re most proud of. Our
partnership with Amazon also enabled
us to engage more customers, and our
sales are up 400%.”
World-class Support
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Economic Impact,
Powered by Partnership
It is inspiring to see our selling partners continue to grow and thrive, especially during a
pandemic that has presented enormous challenges for small businesses around the globe.
Amazon continues to provide small businesses with powerful opportunities to reach more
customers, grow sales and profits, and support good jobs. Sellers in our store saw strong sales
increases over the previous year and have created more than 1.8 million U.S. jobs.
U.S. Seller Performance September 1, 2
020 - August 31, 2021
There are more than 500,000
sellers in the U.S.
U.S. selling partners sold
more than 3.8 billion products
(7,400 every minute) and averaged
more than $200,000 in sales, up year
over year from about $170,000
More than 65,000 American sellers
had over $100,000 in sales, up 10%
year over year
More than 27,000 American sellers
had over $500,000 in sales, up more
than 10% year over year
American sellers’ exports amounted
to more than $2.2 billion in sales,
up year over year from $1.5 billion
The number of American sellers who
surpassed $1 million in sales grew
by nearly 15%
Nearly 4,000 American sellers surpassed
$1 million in sales for the rst time
The number of American
sellers that surpassed
$10 million in sales
increased nearly 40%
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The Top 10 States with the
Most Amazon Sellers Per Capita
Amazon sellers are based in all 50 states. Forty-six states are home to more than 1,000 sellers,
while 27 states have more than 5,000 sellers. The top 10 states with the most sellers per capita are:
3
1
4
2
6
7
8
5
9
10
Listed by state with highest
number of sellers per capita:
State Total sellers
1. Delaware 2,000+
2. Florida 50,000+
3. Utah 7,500+
4. California 88,000+
5. Wyoming 1,000+
6. New Jersey 20,000+
7. Nevada 6,500+
8. New York 40,000+
9. Colorado 10,000+
10. Washington 13,000+
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The Top 10 States with the Most
Year-Over-Year Growth for Amazon Sellers
Amazon sellers in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Delaware had the fastest-growing sales between
September 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021.
1
3
2
6
5
4
8
7
10
Listed by percentage of growth
year over year:
State Growth
1. Nebraska 60%
2. South Dakota 40%
3. Delaware 35%
4. Iowa 33%
5. Kansas 32%
6. Washington 29%
7. West Virginia 28%
8. Arizona 27%
9. South Carolina 27%
10. Connecticut 25%
9
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To learn more about small businesses working with Amazon, visit:
aboutamazon.com/smallbusiness.
