When Alasdair McLean-Foreman arrived at Harvard University from the UK in 2001, he was determined to support himself through school. His small venture selling sports watches online from his dorm room would eventually grow into Teikametrics, a leading retail optimization company now serving thousands of sellers worldwide.
“I remember the early days, trying to optimize my listings and manage inventory stored in the campus mailroom,” McLean-Foreman recalled. “There were so many manual processes. I knew there had to be a better way.” By the time he graduated in 2005, McLean-Foreman had built a multimillion-dollar business, but getting there meant living in spreadsheets, adjusting prices around the clock, and manually tracking inventory across warehouses.
He built his own tools to read the spreadsheets and started automating what he could. But without direct access to Amazon’s data, every step still required manual work. Even simple automation meant downloading fresh data, reformatting it, and carefully translating it into usable information. Real time updates were impossible.
Then, in 2009, Amazon made a decision that would transform McLean-Foreman from seller to software creator. Through what’s known as an API (Application Programming Interface), Amazon allowed outside developers to build software that could read its data automatically. No more manual downloads, no more complicated spreadsheets. What once took hours of painstaking work could now happen in real time.
“When Amazon opened up this access, it was like someone turned on the lights,” McLean-Foreman said. “Suddenly, we could build tools that tapped directly into the data sellers needed most. It completely changed how we approached problem-solving for businesses.”
This decision sparked the creation of an entirely new industry. Today, over 2,700 companies have created more than 3,000 tools used by sellers worldwide. These solution providers, many of which started as small Amazon sellers themselves, now employ thousands in high-skilled technology jobs across the world.
Teikametrics, whose name derives from the Japanese word for ‘decide value,’ uses AI and automation to help sellers optimize advertising, pricing, and inventory management across multiple sales channels. “These are tasks that would cost sellers tens of thousands of dollars to handle manually,” McLean-Foreman explained. The company has established itself as a trusted partner for Amazon sellers by developing tools that work alongside Amazon’s native advertising capabilities.
“Our approach is to combine proprietary business data like cost of goods and multichannel performance with AI-driven optimization,” McLean-Foreman said. “We’ve found this helps sellers achieve their specific advertising goals while maintaining efficiency.” As an Amazon Ads API partner, the company continues to evolve its technology, including new tools that aim to help sellers optimize both their advertising and product listings.
This integration of advertising optimization with catalog management has shown positive results for many sellers. McLean-Foreman noted, “Sellers using Teikametrics are seeing greater reach, higher conversion, and stronger long-term growth on Amazon. It’s a win-win, where innovation from partners like Teikametrics helps sellers thrive, and where Amazon continues to be the premier destination for retail success.”
Co-founders Manny Coats and Guillermo Puyol of Helium 10 were successful Amazon sellers before they decided to create tools to address the challenges they faced in their own business. Today, Helium 10 serves over 1 million sellers globally, offering a suite of tools for product research, keyword tracking, advertising, and more. “We live the seller experience,” said Bradley Sutton, VP of Education & Strategy at Helium 10. “That first-hand knowledge was crucial in developing tools that truly meet sellers’ needs. Amazon’s API gave us the ability to turn our insights into actionable solutions at scale.”
Carbon6, another notable player in this space, has grown from a small team of former Amazon sellers to employing hundreds across multiple countries. The popular solution provider is building what it calls “the connective tissue of ecommerce: a single sign-on ecosystem that spans revenue recovery, AI-driven advertising, inventory forecasting, and compliance.” By stitching formerly siloed workflows together, the company aims to lower the barrier to entry for the next generation of entrepreneurs and extend the economic ripple effect of Amazon’s open-API strategy to other retailers.
“The growth of solution providers is about far more than software; it’s about empowering innovation and supporting entrepreneurs,” said Vanessa Hung, Community Engagement Director at Carbon6. “Companies like ours are not just solving problems for sellers; we’re fostering an environment where creativity and technological expertise can flourish, significantly contributing to economic vitality and job creation on a global scale.”
The solution provider industry, sparked by Amazon’s technology investment and open APIs, has become a driving force in retail innovation. Independent sellers using products from solution providers had over $400 billion in sales.
For innovators like McLean-Foreman and thousands of others, Amazon’s decision didn’t just help them solve problems in their own businesses, it opened the door to building entirely new companies, creating jobs, and driving economic growth across the country.
“We’re part of a new wave of companies transforming retail,” McLean-Foreman concluded. “And it all started because Amazon invested in giving sellers like me the tools to build something bigger.”