California

Chris and Faye Breedlove met in law school and founded a legal practice after getting married. The couple worked remotely while traveling the world for weeks at a time. During COVID, when travel was restricted, the couple turned to their past experiences as inspiration for a new endeavor, TERMINAL B, a luxury candle line that connects travel with fragrance.

The Breedloves credit Amazon’s Black Business Accelerator (BBA) with giving them support to open their store, improving accessibility to their product and creating opportunities to meet new customers and share their story.

As a small business starting out, Faye Breedlove calls the brand exposure TERMINAL B has received from Amazon as the best gift.

The wildfires in Southern California have destroyed over 14,000 homes, and displaced thousands of people, leaving communities in urgent need of support. Answering the call are many small businesses with deep ties to the Los Angeles area. In addition to the LA-based retailers that have rallied to provide support during this time of crisis, it’s also the less visible small businesses—many of which sell in Amazon’s store—that are stepping up in remarkable ways during this crisis.

From a pet care company using its Amazon warehouse to ferry donations to wildfire victims, to an outdoor shower brand donating kits to disaster relief organizations, local independent sellers are pitching in to help those most affected.

In the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, leading a platoon of snipers, Deed Ziegler, a former Marine Corps officer, conceived the idea for RecPak, an ultralight complete meal solution designed specifically for adventurers who love the outdoors.

Years of research and development culminated in his solution: a powdered meal in a flexible pouch that transforms into a 700-calorie liquid meal, packed with nutrients, that can be consumed on the move.

Launched in late 2022 amid lingering supply chain disruptions, the company initially struggled to gain traction with their own website. Ziegler said that everything changed the following year, when RecPak launched in the Amazon store.

“Amazon is foundational to our business,” Ziegler explained. “Our Amazon sales are paying the bills, which means I can now focus on building my business across other sales channels on and off-line.”

From a single pillow product launched in 2013 to over 50 items and 1 million pillows sold, Coop Sleep Goods has scaled exponentially by listening to their Amazon customers reviews and using Amazon’s logistics network and seller services to handle the heavy lifting.

“Without Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), we wouldn’t have been able to scale our business as quickly as we did,” said Jin. “It takes care of the hardest part of having an ecommerce business, which is the picking, packing and shipping the product out. Not having to worry about the fulfillment aspect of the business really frees up your time to be working on your product, on your branding, on your marketing.”

When Sacha Hason’s father asked him to help sell in the Amazon store in 2019, it launched him into the world of leather crafting. Within a few months of leveraging Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Amazon Advertising, sales doubled for what has since become the Hason family business. Today, European Leather Works supplies leather goods in different sizes, shapes, colors—including finished goods and scraps—to retailers and individual leather crafters, helping to keep leather out of landfills. The company has ambitious plans to expand globally with Amazon Global Stores.

People’s Choice Beef Jerky has been a fixture in Los Angeles since 1929, when Mark Bianchetti’s grandfather John first started the company selling sausages and chorizo. Now in its fourth generation of family leadership, the business has evolved into one of the premier beef jerky producers in the country, leveraging Amazon to drive its business.

“We started with just putting a few products on there as a test, and within the first year our Amazon sales had doubled,” said Brian Bianchetti, now CEO of the family business. “It’s been incredible to see the growth.”

The family credits much of that success to leveraging Amazon’s tools and programs, from Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to A+ Content and sponsored ads. With Amazon fueling their online expansion and a commitment to quality, the Bianchetti family is confident that People’s Choice Beef Jerky will be a household name for generations to come.

When a heat wave hurt crops in the Midwest, causing the price per pound of oats to skyrocket 400%, Michelle Pusateri had to relook at her margins on Nana Joes Granola to stay profitable. Instead of passing the cost on to her customers, Pusateri looked internally and, with the help of Amazon, retooled where she could to save the 10 jobs she created.

Fellow is a lifelong dream of Jake Miller, founder and CEO, who wanted to build a business that would combine his love of coffee with product design while also creating jobs for his community. Ten years later, he’s crushed his goal of employing 10 people 10 fold and is about to go global with his products in a success story fueled by grit, grounds and Amazon.

San Francisco-based Alfred and Sarah Mai were disappointed in the lack of fun and meaningful party games out there, so in 2017, they decided to create their own.

“We didn’t know anything about game design or manufacturing or importing,” said Alfred. But that didn’t stop them. The next step was getting their products to customers. The problem? Big-box stores weren’t interested.

That’s when they tried selling in Amazon’s store.