JungleScout provides a platform that helps small businesses find, launch, and sell products on Amazon. They recently released their 2021 State of the Amazon Seller Report.
This report covers who Amazon's small business sellers are, what and how they’re selling, how they are responding to the pandemic induced increase in ecommerce and their future plans.
Amazon has about 2.4 million active global sellers on their platform and they generate roughly $208 billion in revenue, which is about 54% of Amazon's total revenue. Of the 2.4 million sellers, almost half (49%) are based in the U.S.
And according to the report, most sellers (73%) are solopreneurs. Only 27% report having one or more traditional employees.
Also interesting is 36% of sellers report having a full-time job in addition to their Amazon activities. In other words, over one-third of small business sellers selling on Amazon are side giggers.
Over half of the sellers report selling their goods on other platforms (eBay, Etsy, etc.), in stores, or on their own ecommerce site.
We found the data on how they plan to expand quite interesting.
As the report chart below shows, Walmart is the top platform they plan to expand to.
Roughly 1 in 5 (21%) also reported they plan to start their own ecommerce site.
Having a proprietary ecommerce site and not being beholden to the large platform companies is an increasingly popular option.
This is one reason why Shopify has become so successful.
Shopify gives merchants access to services such as payments and fulfillment, but lets them maintain more control of their branding and customer relationships. Shopify's fees are also generally lower than Amazon's.
Having your own site is too valuable not to do it - if you can make it work. And increasingly, small businesses are making it work.
