Amazon make a fortune from SMEs

Amazon on phone

SMEs selling on Amazon created 175,000 jobs across the UK and recorded over £3.5 billion in export sales in 2020.

Over 14,000 UK companies using the platform surpassed £100,000 in sales, and over 1,000 reached £1 million for the first time, according to their 2021 UK SME Impact Report.

The top five categories from which customers bought products were Home, Health & Personal Care, Toys, Apparel and Beauty.

Around 60 per cent of all physical product sales on the Amazon store in the UK are from independent selling partners, most of whom are small and medium-sized UK businesses. There are more than 65,000 UK SMEs selling professionally on Amazon, according to their 2021 UK SME Impact Report.

Small businesses from across the UK are increasingly seeing success from selling on Amazon’s stores, partly due to the new tools and programmes being created to help; services that have grown to include running delivery and logistics companies, using the cloud to launch and scale their businesses, creating voice apps, or publishing their own books.

“Our latest report shows even more small and medium-sized businesses growing on Amazon stores, with a thousand new British businesses reaching £1 million on Amazon stores in sales last year for the first time,” said John Boumphrey, UK Country Manager.

“These businesses come from the length and breadth of the UK, with marked increases in the number of new sellers from Swansea and Glasgow, together with SMEs in places like Durham, Doncaster and Milton Keynes increasing their export sales by more than 50 per cent in the past year.”

SME Publications/ SME XPO 2024

Exports Minister Graham Stuart said: “Exporting companies are more resilient, productive and pay higher wages than their peers. So it is great to see UK businesses joining Amazon’s marketplace and accessing new customers internationally.

“The Department for International Trade is helping more small businesses start their exporting journey through a vast range of support measures, including the free trade agreements we are negotiating across the world.”

Read the full report here

SME Publications/ SME XPO 2024