Amazon report reveals third-party sellers have created 1.8 million jobs

Amazon has released its 2021 Small Business Empowerment Report outlining how the company provides opportunity, tools, and services to help more than 500,000 third-party selling partners in the U.S. reach hundreds of millions of customers, increase revenue and profits, and create good jobs across America. The report comes just ahead of the Amazon Accelerate 2021 virtual conference for sellers, October 20-21, which will include appearances by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Worldwide Consumer CEO Dave Clark.

The 2021 Small Business Empowerment Report details how Amazon provides small business owners, startups, the ability scale their business, build their brand, and create economic impact. Sellers have created an estimated 1.8 million U.S.-based jobs managing, operating, and supporting their Amazon-related businesses.

“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,” said Clark in a statement. “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 profits, and create good jobs. It proved to be a great bet.”

The number of American sellers who surpassed 1 million dollars in sales grew by nearly 15 percent. In the 12 months ending on August 31, 2021, American sellers sold more than 3.8 billion products, averaging 7400 every minute, averaged more than 200,000 dollars in sales, up year-over-year from about 170,000 dollars, and had nearly 2.2 billion dollars in international export sales, up year over year from nearly 1.5 billion dollars.

“When COVID hit, BlueZone was forced to temporarily close all of its physical stores and downsize from 75 employees to 12,” said Kyle Robertson, director of marketing for BlueZone Sports, in a statement. “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.”

In 2020, Amazon invested more than 18 billion dollars in selling partner success to help sellers quickly launch their businesses in Amazon’s store, scale and reach more customers, and build their brands. That investment includes launching new tools and services, and the more than 24,000 employees focused on supporting sellers across the company.