7 Reasons to Sell on Amazon Business

Most people think of Amazon as a massive marketplace for consumers. And while that's accurate - the main Amazon platform has more than 300 million customer accounts - it's only one part of the larger picture. Amazon can also be a platform for businesses to sell to other businesses.

What is Amazon Business?

Amazon Business is the portion of the Amazon marketplace devoted to connecting B2B (business-to-business) sellers with customers. Selling to businesses is different from selling to consumers in a few key ways. In recognition of those differences, the Amazon Business marketplace equips sellers with a specific set of tools that better enable B2B deals.

Selling on Amazon Business: Is It Worth It?

Whether you already have an account as an Amazon merchant or you’re considering branching into selling on Amazon, starting an Amazon Business account can provide a lot of potential benefits. Here are seven reasons to consider selling on Amazon Business.

1) The platform has over one million business customers worldwide.

According to Amazon, the company’s business platform can boast more than one million customers from around the world. That makes Amazon Business an easy way to tap into a massive market of business customers. Listing your products on the site can increase awareness of them with your target audience, and make the purchasing process easier on those who prefer using Amazon Business for their company purchases.

2) Amazon Business customers are lucrative and varied.

The customers using Amazon Business include 55 different companies on the Fortune 100, more than half of the 100 biggest hospital systems in the US, and over 40% of the most populous local governments. But while the Amazon Business marketplace touts big businesses and organizations, you can also expect to reach many small and medium-sized businesses as well.

3) You can offer business pricing and quantity discounts.

Quantity is a key difference between consumer buying needs and business ones. Where a consumer buying your coffee will only need enough to last one household for a few weeks, a business may be responsible for delivering that daily caffeine dose to dozens of employees or more. To win business deals, providing special pricing for larger orders is common practice, and one that can help you net more sales on Amazon Business.

Learn more: Amazon Business Planning: Forecasting to Fulfill Your Goals

4) Amazon Business allows you to accept quotes.

Sometimes a company’s needs are specific enough to be better suited to the process of providing a quote, rather than selecting items on a website. Amazon Business differs from the consumer platform as it gives business customers the option to send you quotes for your approval. They can submit the number of units they’re interested in and give you the chance to offer a discount to win their business.

5) The platform provides visual dashboards to help you track industry trends.

In the world of B2B, you don’t just want to track overall trends in sales. You also want to gain insights into how your products are performing in different industries, and with businesses of different sizes. Amazon Business provides industry dashboards that can help you better understand how your business is performing, and make informed decisions on where to target your efforts.

6) You can display relevant business qualifications.

Many businesses and organizations have internal guidelines that require them to prioritize businesses with specific certifications. If you know your business customers value certifications such as minority-owned or veteran-owned small business status, having an Amazon Business seller profile allows you to list the certifications they care about.

7) For seasoned Amazon sellers, the process of selling through Amazon Business is similar.

If you’re already familiar with Amazon's seller tools, you won’t have much of a learning curve. Many of the steps, processes, and interfaces involved are the same for Amazon Business.

How to Sell on Amazon Business

Getting set up to sell on Amazon Business is simple.

1. To start, make sure you have an Amazon seller account. If you already have an Amazon Professional Seller account, then you can check this step off. If not, set up an account now.
2. Head to Seller Central. In Profile Editor, add your certifications and any diversity qualifications you have.
3. Load your B2B products to the site. Use the listing tools provided by Amazon Business to add your catalog to the site and fill in the product information.

For businesses that already sell products on the Amazon consumer marketplace, these steps will look familiar. Amazon makes expanding to the business side of its platform intuitive enough that there’s no good reason not to.