The Web retailer unveiled Amazon Business on Tuesday, a new marketplace offering tractor parts, latex gloves, paper clips and millions of other products needed in factories, hospitals, schools and offices. Amazon Business is essentially a revamp of Amazon Supply, which was rolled out in 2012 to sell more than 500,000 products to customers in industrial and scientific areas.
Amazon, which has amassed 278 million active shoppers, is now aiming for a chunk of the $1tr that U.S. companies spend annually in business-to-business purchases, a market where Costco Wholesale Corp., Staples Inc. and others have long been active. Amazon Business is likely to step up competition with rival marketplace EBay Inc., which will soon be fending for itself as a stand-alone company once it spins off faster-growing PayPal as part of a planned split.
Amazon is opening up the marketplace to include more than 2 million third-party sellers, expanding inventory beyond what it could sell directly.
