A worker wears a branded T-shirt inside Amazon’s Black Friday pop-up space in London, Britain, November 21, 2017.REUTERS/Toby Melville
- Amazon Business launched in the UK in April, letting businesses procure goods on the platform.
- Service already has 90,000 UK customers, from sole traders to FTSE 100 companies.
LONDON — 90,000 UK companies are using Amazon Business just eight months after launch.
Amazon disclosed the usage figures for its business procurement platform in the UK for the first time on Tuesday. Amazon Business launched in the US in 2015 and expanded to Britain in April of this year.
“It’s a one-stop shop for business customers to buy what they need to operate their business,” said Bill Burkland, head of Amazon Business in the UK.
“What we noticed is that a lot of businesses were indeed shopping on Amazon. They were, to some degree, fulfilling their need. The question we ask is how can we make the lives of those businesses radically better?”
The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that the business-to-business e-commerce market in Britain is worth £100 billion.
Burkland said: “We retained the goodness of Amazon on the consumer side — all of the select is available on the business side, plus we have business-only selection — but then when you’re buying for your business you have different processes and different needs.
“Probably the clearest difference is in how VAT is handled. Businesses want to understand both the VAT exclusive price and the VAT inclusive price. Businesses also want the VAT invoice so they can reclaim and perform their reconciliations. We’ve taken the foundation of the Amazon shopping experience and then we have built on top of it features that are specifically aimed at businesses.”
Burkland said that the take up of the service so far in the UK has “exceeded our expectations.”
“The types of customers range from sole traders to large enterprises,” he said, noting that at least one FTSE 100 company is using the service. He said that companies using Amazon Business range across sectors but it is seeing particular traction in education.
Amazon Business disclosed the usage figures as it announced new features include payment by invoice, VAT exclusive pricing and invoicing, and integration with spending management platform Coupa.
Asked about plans for 2018, Burkland told BI: “The core part of our plans: 1) continuing to add business relevant selection, through the Amazon retail organisation setting up direct relationships with manufacturers and by growing our seller community. 2) just continue our roadmap of features specifically designed for businesses. We have a fairly aggressive roadmap.”
Leave a Reply
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
