SEATTLE, August 21, 2025 — Ten years ago, Amazon launched a side project few outside the company noticed. Today it counts more than 8 million professional customers, from corner shops to some of the world’s largest corporations.
The announcement came quietly, through a briefing with reporters. Managers pointed to growth in sectors like healthcare, education, and heavy industry. “It’s not just office paper and pens anymore,” one executive said. “Companies are buying machinery, tools, and bulk supplies through us.”
What changed? Amazon added local catalogs, regional delivery options, and software that lets finance teams track every purchase. Procurement managers now log in to dashboards that show spending line by line, almost in real time. That level of control has made the service harder to ignore.
Rivals are circling. Walmart has stepped up its own B2B push, and Alibaba is still strong in Asia. But Amazon’s pitch remains the same: it can move goods faster than most, thanks to the delivery network already built for consumers. The difference is that the same trucks now carry pallets along with household parcels.
The company insists this is just the start. Consumer sales may be slowing, but the business market is wide open. For Amazon, the tenth anniversary of its B2B arm is less a celebration than a signal: the next big growth fight will be in procurement.
