A pivotal decision to invite independent sellers into Amazon’s store in 2000 has driven tremendous business growth for entrepreneurs while transforming the retail industry.
Key takeaways
Independent sellers now account for more than 60% of all sales in Amazon’s store.
In 2024 alone, independent sellers employed over 2 million people in the U.S.
Amazon's tools—from logistics solutions to AI-powered assistants—have helped entrepreneurs and small businesses grow into thriving, global brands.
In 2000, Amazon made a decision that would reshape retail forever: welcoming independent sellers to sell in our store alongside Amazon's own retail business. What began as a bold idea to expand selection has grown into one of the most transformative partnerships in the history of the retail industry.
Since then, millions of entrepreneurs have partnered with Amazon to build and scale their businesses by selling in our store. Together, we’ve brought creativity, innovation, and economic opportunity to entrepreneurs of all sizes and their communities around the world. In fact, over these 25 years, independent sellers have generated more than $2.5 trillion in sales in Amazon's store. This remarkable growth has continued—and in the first ten months of 2025, sellers have already generated more sales than in the first ten years of our partnership. This impact extends into local communities. In 2024 alone, independent sellers employed more than 2 million people in the U.S. and provided more than $100 billion in wages for U.S. employees, strengthening local economies across the country.
Today, more than 60% of sales in our store come from independent sellers, almost all of which are small and medium-sized businesses. We’ve built a partnership that continues to fuel growth for sellers and deliver amazing selection, value, and convenience for customers.
How far we’ve come
Over the past 25 years, our partnership with sellers has evolved through continuous innovation. When we first welcomed independent sellers to our store in 2000, we were pioneering a new retail model—one that would benefit both customers and entrepreneurs. From that initial start to our partnership today, we have continued to innovate and partner with sellers to provide powerful tools and infrastructure that empowers sellers to succeed.
In 2006, just one year after introducing the world to Prime, we launched Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), giving small businesses access to Amazon’s world-class logistics capabilities. We’ve continued to build on that foundation—expanding same-day and next day delivery, launching Pan-European FBA to help sellers reach customers across borders, and introducing Multi-Channel Fulfillment so they can deliver to customers quickly no matter where they sell. Over the years, independent sellers have shipped more than 80 billion units with FBA, and just last year over 9 billion items were delivered to Prime customers on the same or next day from when they were ordered.
We have provided sellers with powerful tools that span their selling experience. These include how we help sellers research and design compelling products, create effective product listings, drive efficient advertising and marketing to get their products discovered, build brands with enduring customer loyalty, reach customers across the country and around the globe, and so much more. These innovations provide small businesses with powerful capabilities that leverage our technology and scale, while also helping sellers save time and money.
With the recent advances in generative AI, we have continued to transform every aspect of the selling experience. We can automatically generate product listings, images, videos, and creative campaigns on a seller’s behalf. Our new tools continually enhance the seller’s business to capitalize on the latest trends and changes in shopping behaviors. We provide sellers with their own deeply knowledgeable and personalized Seller Assistant that uses agentic AI to reason, plan, and act on behalf of sellers—and can even do this proactively for the seller if they want it to.
These are just a few of the many milestones from the past 25 years, but they reflect how we continue to invent on behalf of sellers—helping entrepreneurs of every size reach more customers and grow bigger businesses than ever before.
From roadside stand to thriving business
Among the countless success stories from this 25-year journey is Hawaiian Shaved Ice, a family-owned business that exemplifies the growth potential of Amazon's seller community. The company joined Amazon's store in the early 2000s and has since grown into a thriving multi-national enterprise.
"We started out making snow cones in my mom's kitchen and selling them on the side of the road," said Gary Mac Herring, founder of Hawaiian Shaved Ice. "It was just family, a few syrup flavors, and a lot of hard work—but that's where it all began."
This North Carolina–based business represents just one of millions of success stories that have unfolded since Amazon opened its store to independent sellers in 2000.
Hawaiian Shaved Ice experienced its biggest growth spurt when it adopted FBA, just three years after it launched. "Once Fulfillment by Amazon came along and we could send in pallets instead of single boxes, that changed everything," Herring said. "It allowed a small business like ours to scale in a way we never could have on our own."
The results were remarkable. Hawaiian Shaved Ice scaled from fulfilling orders in a 4,000-square-foot warehouse to operating two facilities totaling more than 200,000 square feet. Herring shared that they’re still running out of space. “Amazon’s growth pushed us to grow, too,” he said.
Hawaiian Shaved Ice also leverages Amazon's analytics to identify customer trends and preferences, insights that have helped the company refine product listings and launch successful new product lines that resonate with their customers. Amazon selling tools such as Brand Analytics and Product Opportunity Explorer give sellers of all sizes access to the kind of data once only available to large retailers, empowering small businesses to make faster, smarter business decisions.
Looking ahead: It’s still Day One
As we celebrate 25 years of partnering with independent sellers, these businesses continue to be the heart of Amazon's story—bringing innovative and valuable selection to hundreds of millions of customers while creating great jobs and giving back to their local communities.
Looking ahead, we’ll keep finding ways to make it easier for sellers of every size to grow. From tenured sellers to the next generation of innovators, there is still so much opportunity that our partnership will continue to enable.
To every seller who’s been part of this journey — thank you. Your innovation and partnership have been critical, and you continue to inspire what we build next.
Together, we are writing the story of the most successful partnership in the history of the retail industry. But as we like to say—it’s still Day 1 and there’s still so much opportunity ahead.
