Amazon Business Reshape 2024

During the week of September 23rd, I represented Spend Matters at the Amazon Business Reshape 2024 event in Dallas, Texas.

The event, which hosted over 1,100 attendees (a 28% year-over-year increase), detailed Amazon Business’s growth, revealing that it has reached over $35 billion in annualized sales and serves more than 6 million business customers. Amazon Business’s customer base includes many of the largest and most prominent organizations, such as nearly every Fortune 100 company, some of the biggest local governments and leading hospital systems. It also serves a vast number of tax-exempt organizations, faith-based groups and community organizations. This broad reach highlights the platform’s ability to meet the procurement needs of various sectors and demonstrates its ability to support a wide range of procurement strategies.

The event began with an introduction by Todd Heimes, Vice President of Business Prime and Marketing, followed by Shelley Salomon, Vice President of Amazon Business. Salomon emphasized key procurement trends, including the shift toward decentralized structures, innovation beyond cost savings and the growing focus on sustainability and responsible sourcing. A notable point was the announcement that Amazon Business now supports over 7,000 certified small and diverse sellers and offers more than 300,000 Climate Pledge Friendly products, highlighting Amazon’s commitment to sustainability and inclusivity.

Event announcements

Amazon Business used the event to announce the following:

1. Amazon Business Punch-in is now available for select SAP Ariba US shared customers, and it plans to expand this to all US customers by June 2025. This integration allows buyers to start purchasing on Amazon Business and punch into SAP Ariba for checkout, improving compliance and reducing rogue spend.
2. A PunchOut with Oracle NetSuite SuiteProcurement to enhance purchasing workflows by allowing Amazon Business to integrate directly with Oracle NetSuite’s procurement system.
3. Amazon Business Restock, managed inventory and vending service that are designed to help businesses automate restocking and streamline supply distribution.
4. Amazon Business will join Coupa Advantage in November, offering US-based customers special discounts on thousands of products.

Major new features highlighted

After the major announcements, the event focused on new features Amazon Business was rolling out:

• With the Program Dashboard, procurement managers can track key metrics, such as spend areas, top purchased items and top buyers. This feature provides greater visibility into purchasing behavior across the organization.
• The Hosted Catalog simplifies sourcing by offering access to pre-configured product catalogs tailored to the needs of the organization. This feature enables businesses to standardize their purchasing process by setting preferred suppliers and products, thus ensuring compliance with procurement policies.
• Amazon Account Switching allows businesses to manage multiple Amazon Business accounts and switch between them seamlessly. It is particularly useful for organizations with multiple departments or subsidiaries that may have distinct procurement needs.
• Amazon Business’s Pay-by-Invoice feature offers 30-day payment terms, with extended terms available for Business Prime members. By integrating with an organization’s procurement systems, Pay by Invoice simplifies the reconciliation process by providing digital itemized invoices that can be matched easily with purchase orders and receipts.
• Amazon Business Restock includes two key offerings — managed inventory and vending. For the managed inventory service, Amazon Business technicians restock one or more stockrooms or similar areas within a worksite and can automatically reorder items to keep customers supplied. The vending service, provides businesses with vending machines to control product distribution. Both services are designed to automate restocking, helping companies maintain optimal inventory levels and prevent stockouts.
• APIs for Procurement: Amazon Business presented a suite of APIs designed to enhance integration and automation across procurement systems. These APIs include:
• User Management API for managing user roles and access permissions across the organization.
• Product Search API for search of Amazon Business items within an e-procurement system or native websites.
• Direct Ordering API to streamline order placement directly from a company’s business applications, reducing manual input.
• Reconciliation API for automated retrieval of pre-generated post-purchase documents such as e-invoices.
• Reporting API to provide detailed reports on order history and payment details directly to your reporting tools.

Spend Matters pending questions

While the event offered many valuable insights, there are still a few open questions that we at Spend Matters plan to follow up on:

• Services procurement: Is there a plan to focus on services procurement, potentially partnering with contingent workforce marketplaces?
• User experience: Will Amazon Business improve its user experience by introducing guided buying features and NLP to streamline procurement requests?
• AWS integration: Are there plans to integrate AWS capabilities, allowing Amazon Business to evolve beyond an eMarketplace into a more comprehensive platform?
• Sourcing capabilities: Will Amazon Business develop more advanced sourcing features beyond bulk buying?
• Supply chain collaboration: Are there plans to add advanced supply chain collaboration features to support direct purchasing capabilities?

Final Commentary

Amazon Business has long been recognized for its strength in long-tail procurement, but the event showcased its growing role as a more comprehensive procure-to-pay (P2P) solution for both strategic and indirect purchases. While it still functions as a B2B marketplace, Amazon Business is expanding its capabilities to manage more spend from larger organizations, gaining traction beyond transactional purchases. It is evolving in a complementary role to existing P2P suite providers, broadening its influence in procurement processes without fully competing in areas like supplier management or contract lifecycle just yet.

Amazon Business’s increasing integrations and partnerships — highlighted by its Partner Programs — indicate that it’s becoming a more significant player in controlling larger portions of enterprise spend. It continues to serve as a flexible platform for day-to-day and strategic purchases, aligning with organizations’ procurement goals by enhancing spend visibility, transaction data management and automation through its growing range of APIs and tailored procurement solutions.