Amazon Launches Storefronts Page For Buying From Small, Medium-Sized Businesses

Amazon has given customers who are worried about the e-commerce behemoth killing small businesses a way to shop on the site while feeling less guilty. The company announced, and launched, a new page called Amazon Storefronts on Monday. Storefronts specializes in products sold by “small & medium sized businesses,” per Amazon.

The new Storefronts page features items in a range of categories, from kitchenware and jewelry to electronics and books. It appears to also feature seasonal items, with “Back to School” and “Halloween” categories prominently featured on the front page as of Monday. Products on Storefronts come from almost 20,000 different small and medium businesses, according to CNBC.

Amazon also plans to use Storefronts to highlight specific small businesses and their individual owners. One page on Storefronts is devoted to short stories featuring different small business owners, with links to their products underneath each entry. There will also be videos with similar content on the site at some point.

The company will also air the first nationally broadcast television commercial in its history as a way to advertise Storefronts, according to CNBC.

Amazon’s aggressive strategy for expanding its business offerings has had an effect on some competitors in service sectors it has entered. For example, when it was reported that Amazon was possibly interested in buying a small, indie-focused movie theater chain in August, the share prices for both AMC (AMC) and Cinemark (CNK) dropped.

Jeff Bezos’ e-commerce empire started primarily as an online bookseller, but has expanded to offer customer benefits at Whole Foods grocery stores and will even sell living Christmas trees this holiday season. The company is also said to be working on health clinics.

In May, Amazon argued it was good for small businesses in its Small Business Impact Report. The report concluded that letting entrepreneurs market their products as third-party sellers on the site has created 900,000 jobs around the world. The Storefronts page also echoed the sentiment from that report that half of everything purchased on Amazon comes from third-party sellers.