Proof of Concept in B2B Ecommerce: Amazon Business Hits $1B in Year One

Business to business ecommerce has long been predicted to change the game in the purchasing process, with Forrester estimating that B2B ecommerce is expected to reach $780 billion (9.3 percent) in the U.S. by the end of 2015 and $1.1 trillion (12 percent of all sales) by 2020. With companies upgrading their websites to support buyers researching, comparing, and buying through multiple channels.

Concerning this, those looking for the “Amazon of Ecommerce” don’t need to look much further than the Ecommerce giant itself and its Amazon Business platform, which cleared $1 Billion in its first year.

Amazon Business

First launched on April 28, 2015, Amazon Business looked to bring the convenience of its consumer-facing platform to the business world, adding business-focused features like shared payment methods, purchasing system integration, enhanced order reporting, exclusive discounts, order approval workflows, and more.

Allowing registered businesses with TIN and their designated associates (users) to shop for business supplies on Amazon, the budding B2B Marketplace offers access to items the average consumer would not need or want. Even more, Amazon Business offers credit lines to businesses including a Pay-in-Full credit line with 55 day billing terms, and a revolving credit line for smaller businesses to build credit.

For more on the launch of the Amazon Business Marketplace, see the PYMNTS.com Interview with Prentis Wilson, Vice President of Amazon Business.

One Year Later: The B2B Marketplace Hits $1B in Transactions

In just one short year, the marketplace saw 20 percent month-on-month growth, adding more than 30,000 sellers and more than 300,000 businesses to its platform in the past year and continuing to add “thousands of customers” every week.

How Amazon Business Answers a Key Need

This rapid growth shows that business-to-business purchasing is moving online at a rapid pace, capturing a growing piece of an $8.2 trillion market. Amazon also is filling a weakness that single-suppliers face when considering a move to ecommerce, salesperson and executive reluctance.

According to a recent WEX blog, an Accenture study found that “one major resistance factor to eCommerce sales comes from within the organization itself. For a B2B organization to get their customers to start buying online, business leaders must first drive employee evangelism by pushing their own sales teams to implement change instead of staying set in their original ways of doing business, mainly offline.”

Further, the rise of Amazon Business also plays on the convenience needs of businesses, and primes them for the future of B2B Ecommerce, in which mobile will continue to become a bigger and bigger portion of the consideration and purchasing process.

Learn more about the latest in B2B Ecommerce by following WEXIncNews on Twitter, and reading through the following:

• Don’t Leave Value-Added Payments Services Out of Your B2B Customer Loyalty Program
• 3 Tips to Prepare Your Payments Organization for What’s Next
• Millennials Drive B2B eProcurement Adoption
• The B2B Ecommerce Manifesto
• Study Finds B2B Ecommerce Accelerating
• You Have the Technology, Rid Your Organization of Paper Checks
• Payments Innovations Set to Disrupt the Banking Industry
• Supplier Relationships Believed Central to B2B Customer Engagement