Amazon UK Marketplace exports £1bn of products overseas

The growth of the service has resulted in a 35% increase in the number of UK sellers who generated more than £1m in annual revenues from the business in the year to April 2015.

Growth in Amazon’s marketplace comes as retailers including Game and Darty launch their own marketplaces, while the explosion of Alibaba’s Taobao platform has enabled retailers to expand into China.

Chris Poad, the boss of Amazon’s UK Marketplace business, estimated that Marketplace sellers have created “tens of thousands of jobs” in the UK.

Professional sellers include entrepreneurs such as Callum Bush, a former Carphone Warehouse employee who left when he realised he could compete with his old employer by sourcing and selling mobile accessories himself.

Bush has sold more than 1 million products since launching his business in 2009 and has opened offices in London, Las Vegas and Milan.

To capitalise on the growth of Marketplace, Amazon is launching an app for sellers, designed to improve the efficiency of their operations.

The Amazon Seller app will be available to download on June 1.

At present sellers are limited to managing their businesses from their browsers, but the upcoming app will allow users to manage their accounts via mobile.

Amazon claimed trials have shown the app allows sellers to respond 30% more quickly to customer enquiries.

Poad believes it is a powerful proposition because sellers are “typically in their warehouse meeting suppliers and tend to be extremely reactive to things like changes in price”.

He added: “We are absolutely investing in both customer facing mobile apps and better mobile experiences and also seller experiences.”

‘Soft lines’ such as clothing and jewellery are the fastest-growing category on Amazon Marketplace, while electronics and general merchandise is the biggest category.

Amazon US is also gearing up to launch a rival to craft marketplace Etsy, called Handmade. Poad said it was “super early” days for Handmade but added he was interested to observe how it develops because “clearly there is customer demand for unique one-off hand-made products”.

Amazon has started paying corporation tax in Britain rather than Luxembourg after it came under fire for avoiding tax, but Poad does not believe its previous arrangements were “a concern for sellers”.