Amazon Business now operates dedicated B2B ecommerce sites in nine countries, with Canada the latest to join the club at Amazon.ca/business.

Amazon.com Inc. launched the Canada site last week, when it also made its Business Prime shipping service available to businesses in Canada. Buyers and sellers in Canada can now participate in the procurement, spend management and shipping services Amazon Business offers.

In addition to Canada and the United States, Amazon Business operates ecommerce sites in the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, India and Japan. It also offers the Business Prime service at some of those sites. Amazon Business, which launched in 2015 to replace AmazonSupply.com, where Amazon was the only seller, says it now operates internationally with hundreds of thousands of sellers and “millions business customers” worldwide with annual sales of more than $10 billion. Industry analysts have projected it is on course to soon surpass $20 billion in annual sales.

Amazon also makes business and industrial products available on Amazon.com outside of Amazon Business, which operates as a designated section of Amazon.com. But Amazon Business offers sellers and buyers a number of business-focused services, such as bulk pricing and purchasing-approval workflows.

3M Canada joins and buyer and seller

3M Canada, the Canadian arm of 3M Co., expects to use Amazon Business Canada as both a buyer and seller, Lisa Citton-Battel, director, Consumer Business Group, 3M Canada, says. “We will use Amazon Business to complement our existing distribution model and reach a broader range of business customers,” Citton-Battel says in a press release issued by Amazon. “And for our own procurement, we look forward to a more streamlined approach to identifying, approving and tracking delivery of the products our teams need both in the office and in our manufacturing plants.”

Linda Morency, vice president of business development at La Clef de Sol, a supplier of excess consumer goods products to retailers, says her company has experienced strong sales on Amazon.com and expects to boost its sales further with the selling resources Amazon Business provides.

Those services include:

• Business Prime shipping, for fees starting at C$109 (US$81.20) plus taxes for up to three users, buyers can get expedited shipping on eligible items for no extra shipping charges;
• Guided buying, a feature of Business Prime that lets companies with purchasing accounts to establish preferred suppliers and set restrictions on spending for particular product categories;
• Business accounts, which let buying organizations set up purchasing accounts for single or multiple buyers;
• Spending controls, including purchase-approval workflows and access to analytics data to monitor spending habits;
• Business pricing, which allows sellers to offer tiered volume discounts for particular buyers.

Alexandre Gagnon, vice president of Amazon Business, says Amazon Business Canada was “designed to meet unique and complex procurement needs” for organizations ranging from hospitals and educational institutions to large business organizations, government agencies and sole proprietors.

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