The Power of Amazon's E-commerce Platform

Amazon is currently the world's largest marketplace, generating approximately $280 billion in 2019 (yes, you read that right, dollars). Today, they own about 50% of all e-commerce in both the USA and Germany and continue to grow significantly worldwide.

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In addition to Amazon's e-commerce business, they offer a multitude of other services and products.

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Amazon's AWS accounts for about 40% of the world's cloud services, and the Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch had about 7.5 million active users in 2020. Their Prime service, which offers better shipping terms, free streaming of music and video, and much more, has over 110 million active users (in the USA). These are just a few of Amazon's many services.

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In other words, Amazon is investing broadly and heavily. There is no indication that they will slow down; rather, they are accelerating. When other companies were laying off employees during the Corona crisis in 2020 (still ongoing as I write this), Amazon chose to hire 175,000. That's more new workers than the population of Uppsala, Sweden's fourth-largest city.

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Amazon's E-commerce Marketplace

Amazon's e-commerce platform is, as mentioned, enormous and drives a huge amount of traffic. They have surpassed Google in terms of the number of product searches and (hold on now) over 4,000 products are sold on Amazon every minute.

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Who Sells the Products?

On Amazon, both Amazon sells its own products, but they also allow third parties to sell their products. Brands often sell their products themselves, but many larger brands leave Amazon open for their resellers.

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Where is Amazon's E-commerce Platform Available?

Amazon is currently established in the following regions and countries:

• Europe: Germany, Netherlands, UK, France, Spain, Italy (Sweden not yet launched)
• America: USA, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil
• Asia-Pacific: Japan, India, Australia, Singapore
• Middle East: United Arab Emirates, Turkey

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What Types of Products Are Sold on Amazon?

Amazon started in 1994 by selling books but has since moved towards a broader and broader range of products. Today, you can buy almost anything on Amazon. Everything from keychains with Sriracha (!?) to entire houses.

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So, almost regardless of what you want to sell, there is a market for it. But make sure you know how large that market is and what competition exists before investing in it. Either by going through the market yourself or by having a professional market analysis done.

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Summary (and Next Steps)

That was a brief introduction to Amazon and their e-commerce platform. Check out the SellWave's blog for more information about Amazon and how to maximize your sales there. Or go directly to the next recommended blog post: How to Sell on Amazon.