Amazon has announced that it will now offer its Amazon Business services in Spain and Italy.
This brings its EU coverage to a totally of five countries, following its earlier expansion into the UK marketplace last year, plus its coverage in France and Germany.
Amazon Business offers companies who operate in the business to business supplier industry the ability to sell products online with Vat-exclusive pricing.
The service also provides Amazons business analytics software. This allows users to set up dashboards to visualise data collected such as sales and cost figures.
It can also manage aspects of a companies HR department by displaying current employee numbers and if needed help construct new employee interview pipelines.
According to a report from the Office for National Statistics the value of sales to businesses or public authorities was £96.5 billion in 2015.
“Businesses with 250 to 999 employees made the highest sales to businesses or public authorities of £35.9 billion.”
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UK Usage
One company currently using Amazon Business is the UK Outdoor Store.
Speaking to Computer Business Review, Simon Clark from UK Outdoor Store told us that: “We haven’t seen a major uplift in it, what it does do is it encourages companies to buy a bit more in bulk.”
When asked would they utilise the new markets that have been opened by today’s announcement he informed us that they: “Haven’t gone into it in a big way, but it is certainly something we would look at.”
“We used to get a few business inquiries from companies who want to buy certain products in multiple quantities and so they would be looking for discounts. It gives another opportunity for that,” he added.
New Features
Amazon Business has recently included new features such as ‘pay by invoice’ which gives business 30 day payment terms to help ease cash flow constraints. It also has been integrated into E-Procurement platforms such as JAGGAER, SAP Ariba and Coupa.
Commenting in the announcement of Amazon Business in Italy and Spain, Bill Burkland, Head of Amazon Business at Amazon.co.uk. said that it: “Enables multi-national businesses with entities in Europe to continue to streamline their purchasing, whilst also providing new exporting opportunities for smaller UK businesses who sell on the Amazon Business marketplace.”
Mike Mitchell of MMP Living a US wholesaler also commented in the announcement that: “We’ve been using Amazon Business in the US, which has been a great growth opportunity for us. We’ve historically been a consumer focused business, but with the growth of Amazon Business we started sourcing products to satisfy the growing demand from businesses.”
