Amazon promises to streamline purchases between businesses with new marketplace

Online retail giant Amazon has unveiled a new platform in Australia, promising to streamline purchases between businesses and offer savings as rising operating costs continue to be a headache.

Amazon Business is an online marketplace tailored to organisations — like small businesses, sole traders, not-for-profits and major companies — to help with their business purchases.

Its offerings include pricing and quantity discounts for bulk orders and Business Prime, which has similar shipping benefits to the Prime membership.

Other features also include multi-user accounts, which enable teams to share payment and shipping addresses, as well as guided buying, allowing businesses to train staff on preferred products and suppliers.

Amazon Business Australia country manager Lena Zak said the platform was a one-stop shop.

“I’m really excited about the ability for businesses to really get very valuable insights from moving their purchasing onto Amazon,” she said.

“Where businesses might go to multiple different stores, have receipts from multiple different stores and then at the end of the financial year have to spend a lot of time . . . consolidating their spending, understanding where their staff expenses are coming from — now all of that can really be simplified.”

Amazon Business is already available in 10 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Italy and Japan.

The launch on Wednesday comes as new YouGov research, commissioned by Amazon, revealed the cost of doing business had risen for 92 per cent of the nation’s small and medium-sized firms over the past three years.

It found rising operating costs were the biggest concern for nearly 80 per cent of small businesses, with higher cost of goods and products proving to be the biggest headache.

Amazon said the launch came at a pivotal time for small businesses, with most stocking up on supplies as the end of the financial year approaches.

The platform provides a wide range of products across categories like office, electronics and furniture.

Ms Zak said Amazon Business could relieve some cost pressures by offering savings on everyday goods and supplies, as well as assist with the convenience and simplicity of its delivery service.

“We’re trying to do for procurement what Amazon did for retail when we launched seven years ago,” she said.

Amazon Business contributes about $35 billion in annualised gross sales to the group and has more than eight million customers worldwide, including 96 of the Fortune 100 in the US.