Pennsylvania

Kelly Costello transformed a one-bedroom apartment experiment into Puppy Cake, a thriving dog treat company now celebrating over 100,000 canine birthdays annually. After launching in 2007 with dog-safe cake mixes, she began selling in the Amazon store in 2008. Switching to Fulfillment by Amazon in 2010 catapulted sales from 100 to thousands of units monthly. Today, Amazon represents 65% of sales for the woman-owned business, which operates from a 20,000-square-foot facility in rural Pennsylvania, employing six workers and revitalizing the local economy. Using Amazon’s seller tools—from SKU Economics to A/B testing—Costello hit $1 million in revenue and continues innovating with new products like Kitty Cake.

After a pandemic layoff derailed Garrett Drumheller’s career, the sports physical therapist leveraged his wellness background to invent the NordStick, a portable strength training tool for athletes and fitness enthusiasts meant to reduce hamstring injuries. With hands-on support from Amazon Strategic Account Services, the small business is leveraging Prime Day to power sales and reach new customers, generating a month of revenue in just two days during last year’s annual deal event. In just three years, NordStick has reached over $6 million in sales. “I’m a hundred percent devoted to growing my business and helping more people outside of what I can do in just one physical therapy clinic through my products—and Amazon remains a staple of that,” Drumheller said.

In the basement of her Pennsylvania home, Laura Bergman built a factory for her Amazon Handmade following.

“There’s a guy outside my window pulling his plow with horses and I’m in my basement, where I can reach millions of customers,” said Bergman. “This does not exist anywhere else.”

She joined the Amazon Handmade community in 2014, marketing herself among other artisans, was badged as a certified small business and signed up for Fulfillment by Amazon to reduce her backend work. It didn’t take long, she said, for customers to find her “corner of Amazon” and start buying.