Amazon often touts how its marketplace is good for small businesses, and last year, it launched new features to help them stand out. Now Amazon is testing a “Small Business” search filter to help shoppers isolate their search results to products offered by small businesses.
“As part of our ongoing efforts to support small businesses, we’re testing a Small Business Search filter. The Small Business Search filter helps customers filter their searches to discover products from small business brands and artisans while shopping in Amazon’s store,” Amazon announced on Thursday.
“When a customer’s search results include eligible products from small business brands, the new filter will appear under the “Business Type” category in their search filter options,” it explained.
Amazon introduced small-business badges last year. This EcommerceBytes news story explains how Amazon defines small businesses – they must be registered with Brand Registry or participate in the Handmade program. But as one seller wrote in reaction to last week’s announcement about the small-business search filter, “So will that include the small business used book sellers? We can’t brand used media!”
In a January interview, Amazon’s Director of Small Business Empowerment Keri Cusick explained other ways Amazon highlights small businesses.
Update 5/16/2023: The Information’s Theo Wayt reported last month that sometimes the Amazon badge meant to indicate a US small business ended up appearing on listings for sellers from China or big brands like Johnson & Johnson.
Amazon should JUST be for small businesses. Why would a large business with a household name brand need an alternative website than their own…great sales job AMZ
i guess if you can answer that one, you can also tell me why someone would need to pay to advertise their listings after paying to list and a FV fee? great sales job AMZ, i thought that would have been just called a rate hike