Half of Amazon's purchases come from SMB sellers
Amazon on Wednesday touted the power of small and medium-sized businesses selling products on its Amazon Marketplace, saying it shipped "billions of items" in 2017 for SMBs.
SMBs currently account for half of the products sold worldwide on Amazon, and more than 140,000 SMBs selling surpassed $100,000 in annual sales during 2017, according to the e-commerce giant.
In a press release, Amazon detailed more than 300,000 US-based SMBs joined Amazon Marketplace in 2017. Further, Amazon Lending, another part of Amazon's B2B service sector, surpassed $3 billion lent to small businesses on Amazon since it began in 2011.
Marketplace enables third-party sellers to sell new or used products on Amazon.com, and can take advantage of Amazon's fulfillment solutions to ship products to customers.
"These businesses are reinvesting in their local communities - creating jobs and supporting local suppliers. We are proud of how the Amazon Marketplace helps empower so many small businesses, not just in the US, but around the world," Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace, said in a statement.
During the holiday season, Amazon said SMBs shipped one billion items to customers, with more than 140 million items ordered between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
Earlier this year, Amazon detailed the Echo Dot was its overall top selling product, and mobile purchases saw a 70 percent year-over-year increase.