Small business owners are builders. They create new and better products for their customers, and that same spirit drives them to keep growing and improving.
We’re proud that more than 60% of sales in Amazon’s store come from independent sellers, most of which are small and medium-sized businesses. Together, these sellers and Amazon provide a broad selection for our customers while enabling their continued growth. More than 75,000 independent sellers surpassed $1 million in sales in the Amazon store in 2025, according to this year’s Small Business Empowerment Report.
This year, Amazon again co-sponsored National Small Business Week and participated in a virtual summit hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration and America’s SBDCs to provide educational resources and networking opportunities to entrepreneurs across the country. We gathered three successful Amazon sellers to share advice about growing through ecommerce. They shared real-world experiences using AI to scale operations, optimizing fulfillment and distribution, and expanding across multiple sales channels.
In their webinar, “Beyond the Storefront: Smart Strategies for Small Business Growth,” a few important themes emerged.
1. Use the tools of ecommerce
Selling online brings a number of tools and resources to small businesses. From AI-powered assistants to customer reviews to real-time sales and advertising data, business owners can save time and get quick feedback to guide their decisions.
Abhishek Shrivastava, co-founder and CEO of Teavity says, “Feedback doesn’t just tweak our products. It drives what we build next and keeps our brand growing.” And, he adds, “We didn’t even just sell our products, but also it helped build our brand and fuel our scale.”
In recent years, artificial intelligence has dramatically improved tools that analyze data, create content, and inform decisions. Dewar Gaines, founder and CEO of Gaines Family Farmstead, has made this powerful technology an integral part of his business. “We are using AI at scale. All of our team members use it daily,” he notes.
Shrivastava added, “AI has made our life so much easier. We are faster, we are smarter, we are more organized, we are scaling efficiently.”
2. Stay curious, keep adapting
In today’s competitive marketplace, these business owners have found that they do their best when they are constantly learning and adapting to the changing technologies and environment.
Kristen Pumphrey, Founder and Creative Director, P.F. Candle Co., says, “Adaptability is just the most important thing…You’ve always got to be experimenting. One day’s not going to be the same as the next.”
That sentiment was shared with the rest of the panel. Shrivastava summed up the opportunities businesses can realize when they stay open to learning new lessons. “For us, it was trial, error, and repeat. We turned our headaches into our biggest strength,” he said.
Gaines agrees “…it’s a constant evolution. Every single day we’re thinking about what can we do to save a couple of pennies on every bag of dog treats that we sell…those pennies add up so quickly that I think that you have to regularly optimize and regularly reconfigure everything you’re doing in terms of a distribution model.”
3. Be everywhere your customers are
Across the board, these small business leaders agreed it was important to sell their products in multiple ways to reach customers, build trust, and establish customer loyalty. Selling online in a marketplace, through their own websites, or in brick-and-mortar retail stores all have their benefits and putting that all together is a powerful catalyst for growth.
As Gaines says, “My belief is that every business today must be omnichannel. You need a strong retail base, you need a strong digital base, you need a strong market presence even in your local markets.”
Pumphrey added that having multiple sales channels also helped them manage their finances more steadily to both pay the bills and reinvest in the company. “We would have the layers of, you’re getting the individual sales that are $30 or $50, then you’re getting independent stores that stock us. They’re buying 200, $500 at a time. When we added the layer of national accounts that started stocking us…we reinvested it.”
More Educational and Support Programs for Small Businesses
Sharing advice like this directly from fellow entrepreneurs is just one way Amazon helps support and grow small businesses. Additional educational opportunities are available at Amazon Seller University and through our partnerships with local organizations.
Amazon also helps customers discover and shop from small businesses in the Amazon store through features like the Support Small storefront, special features during sale events such as Prime Day, and through the Small Business badge on eligible products.
And we will continue to invest in new ways to support sellers, in Amazon’s store and beyond, through innovations that power sellers’ businesses across their sales channels, from logistics and fulfillment to payments solutions.
Amazon’s Commitment and Impact
For more than 25 years, entrepreneurs have partnered with Amazon to build and scale their businesses by selling in our store. We’re committed to their success, and we’re proud that together we’ve also been able to extend that positive impact into local communities. In 2025, independent sellers in Amazon’s store employed more than 2 million people across the United States.
About the Panelists
Dewar Gaines, Founder and CEO, Gaines Family Farmstead
Dewar Gaines is the founder and CEO of Gaines Family Farmstead, a fast-growing, family-owned and operated pet brand specializing in single-ingredient, responsibly sourced dog treats. What stared with Dewar hand-slicing sweet potatoes at his kitchen table has grown into a fast-scaling, Alabama-based business with a thriving presence online and in more than 2,000 retail locations nationwide. From introducing novel protein sources to upcycling underutilized animal parts into high-value products, Dewar has positioned Gaines Family Farmstead at the intersection of sustainability and profitability.
Kristen Pumphrey, Founder and Creative Director, P.F. Candle Co.
Kristen Pumphrey is the founder and Creative Director of P.F. Candle Co., a California-based fragrance brand she launched from her kitchen stove top as a one-woman Etsy shop in 2008. Today, P.F. is sold online and in thousands of stores worldwide, with three brick-and-mortar locations, and employs 65 people. The company remains independently owned and operated by Kristen and her husband.
Abhishek Shrivastava, Co-founder and CEO, Teavity
Abhishek Shrivastava is the co-founder and CEO of Teavity, a Florida-based company he runs with his wife. From their own experience, they saw a market opportunity for bringing traditional tea blends into the modern market. Teavity features organic, sustainable tea products, including biodegradable tea pods they manufacture for themselves and other brands. Thanks to some early explosive growth, Teavity is now available on its own website and multiple online stores. Abhishek has been an entrepreneur since he was 14 years old, and has successful innovations across healthcare, telecom, deep-sea exploration, and global finance.