Amazon goes full bore for B2B commerce

29 Apr 2015

Amazon on Tuesday, 28 April 2015, announced Amazon Business, lifting its three-year-old Amazon Supply business-to-business marketplace from beta status to full functionality with new features and benefits, and a massively increased product selection.

Amazon Business offers customers everything from IT and lab equipment to traffic signs, industrial deep fryers and 55-gallon steel drums. Customers will need a business license to register.

Orders of US$49 or more for any of tens of millions of items will get free two-day shipping.

The marketplace will carry more than 250 million items, Amazon spokesperson Lori Richter told the E-Commerce Times. Amazon Supply will be folded into the marketplace, and from 13 May on, customers visiting AmazonSupply.com will be redirected to Amazon Business.

"Amazon's primary interest is, they're making an enormous amount of money from [the B2B marketplace] and it's a really nice business from their perspective," remarked Scott Strawn, a program director at IDC.

Read the full article on E-CommerceTimes.com.