Three months after announcing its first overseas expansion to Germany and India, Amazon Business announced Tuesday that it has officially launched in the United Kingdom, further evidence of success for the e-tailer giant's B2B segment.
Adding the regions of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Amazon adds an online B2B market that was valued at $120 billion in 2015 by Newport, England-based Office for National Statistics.
The news was first reported by multiple U.K.-based outlets, including The Guardian, Independent and BBC.
Amazon Business UK will reportedly sell more than 100 million products, with the unit targeting small, mid-size and large businesses by offering a range of products from industrial tools, to office supplies, to jan/san equipment.
In a statement Tuesday, Amazon Business UK head Bill Burkland said, "Amazon Business combines more than 100 million business products with a new set of unique business features — from reporting and analytics to spending limits and purchasing workflow approvals."
Amazon Business UK will offer free-one day delivery on orders over 30 British pounds ($37.30), VAT exclusive pricing and in-depth analytics that allow purchasing managers to track spending.
Formerly Amazon Supply, Amazon Business was first launched in the U.S. in April 2015. In its first year, it exceeded $1 billion in sales and had more than 300,000 purchases made on the platform from 30,000 businesses as of May 2016, when it also said customer purchases were growing at about 20 percent each month.
This past Jan. 4, the company said its customer count had grown to more than 45,000 different sellers and more than 400,000 total customers — doubling the count it stated a year earlier. Overall, the unit has been adding about 100,000 customers per quarter.
The U.K. includes the major metropolitan areas of:
- London (population 9.8 million)
- Manchester (2.6 million)
- West Midlands (2.5 million)
- West Yorkshire (1.8 million)
- Glasgow (1.2 million)
- Liverpool (900,000)
- South Hampshire (900,000)
- Tyneside (800,000)
- Nottingham (750,000)
- Sheffield (700,000)
