More West Midlands firms are selling on Amazon

Nationally more than 85,000 UK SMEs now sell professionally through the online market place – up 25 per cent year on year – with 15,000 surpassing £100,000 in sales last year and over 700 reaching sales of £1 million or more for the first time.

Amazon's UK SME impact report found SMEs selling on Amazon have created 250,000 jobs across the UK to date.

More than half of all physical product sales on the Amazon store in the UK are from independent selling partners, most of who are small and medium-sized businesses.

More than 3,000 SMEs in Birmingham sold goods through Amazon in 2021, an increase of 46 per cent on the previous year, with average revenue of more than £185,000 in 2021.

Across the West Midlands, more than 7,500 SMEs sold products last year on Amazon – up 36 per cent.

Anuja Boopathy, general manager at Amazon's giant fulfilment centre in Rugeley, said: “Some of the most innovative and inventive SMEs in the UK are based in Birmingham and we are pleased to support their continued growth through our Amazon Seller programmes.

“It’s great to play a part in helping SMEs reach more customers, sell more products and ultimately generate a positive impact on the local economy."

Wales has more than 2,500 sellers, up around a third on the year before.

Last year around 50,000 sellers in the UK used Amazon’s fast shipping and inventory management service, Fulfilment by Amazon.

Amazon Business, the professional procurement solution, helped tens of thousands of UK sellers reach more than five million businesses worldwide, selling around 20 million items across office supplies, hospitality, healthcare, maintenance products and IT goods, generating over £400m in sales.

Amazon has also launched an upgraded Amazon Small Business Accelerator, which will serve the evolving needs of the UK’s thriving small business community, hosted on Amazon.co.uk as an accessible and free-to-use suite of resources for all start-ups, entrepreneurs and small or medium-sized businesses.

“Supporting UK small businesses to fulfil their potential remains an essential part of what we do,” said John Boumphrey, UK country manager for Amazon.

"Today we’re proud to launch our revamped Amazon Small Business Accelerator, which will help even more small businesses across the UK. Many people told us the accelerator was the catalyst for them to start a new business during and since the pandemic, so we are excited to see how many more we can reach with new content, events and partners."

Caroline Lavelle, chief commercial officer for the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “It’s always good to see companies like Amazon play a role in supporting our smaller businesses to improve their online presence and reach. We hope that many of our members will find this useful.”