Aldevra increases sales 315% using diversity certifications on Amazon Business
A veteran and Black-Owned small business reaches new customers across industries.
Overview
Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Aldevra was founded in 2009 to sell medical and foodservice equipment. As a veteran and Black-Owned small business, Aldevra displays its diversity certifications on the Amazon Business store to find new enterprise organizations with goals to support local small businesses, and increasingly, those with diversity certifications.
Giving a small, diverse business large business reach
Small businesses are vital to the US economy. In 2019, the Small Business Administration (SBA) reported that small businesses represent 99.9 percent of all firms in the US1. As small businesses look to grow, there is an opportunity to connect to large organizations looking to source from small and diverse suppliers to meet their sourcing goals. B2B e-commerce stores like Amazon Business act as a matchmaker between the two, providing common ground to connect them.
Amazon Business provides third-party selling partners with the ability to highlight 150+ diversity certifications to help attract new customers. These certifications are valuable to business customers with specific sourcing needs and requirements they’re interested in, or are required by law to support.
For example, Amazon Business customers like Johns Hopkins University and the City of Baltimore leverage the Amazon Business store to find and source from small and diverse businesses to support HopkinsLocal and BLocal initiatives. These are commitments to leverage their collective influence to help strengthen and create opportunities for the community. In the first three years of HopkinsLocal, the university and health system committed 23.5% of its addressable spending—or $48.5 million—to minority-owned, women-owned, and historically-disadvantaged businesses.2
According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), although 12.6% of the US population is African American, only 9.5% of African Americans are business owners, and only 2.1% of businesses with employees are Black-Owned.3 Considering these statistics, according to Zoe Dieleman, Support Specialist at Aldevra, the company is a success story for a Black-Owned business. It currently has 38 employees, offers benefits such as healthcare, 401(k), and professional development opportunities for its employees. The company has been intentional about how it does business with an emphasis on building long-term success for its employees and their families.
“We understand that we play a role in building awareness to disparities and inequities that Black Americans are facing, and do our part to help close the racial wealth gap,” said Dieleman. “By aligning Aldevra with organizations like Amazon Business who are committed to supporting small, and minority-owned businesses like ours, we continue to grow and thrive.”
"By aligning Aldevra with organizations like Amazon Business who are committed to supporting small, and minority-owned businesses like ours, we continue to grow and thrive."
— Zoe Dieleman , Support Specialist, Aldevra
Growing together with Amazon Business
In 2019, Aldevra’s sales on the Amazon Business store increased 315% year over year, and through 2020 it has grown an additional 80% in incremental sales across industries, including commercial sector, education, healthcare, and most significantly—government—with a 246% increase in sales to government agencies through 2020. With this success, Aldevra increased its product availability by 20,000 in 2020, with a total of 40,000 products now available to supply to its growing customer base. Already in 2022, Aldevra has reported 107% increase in sales the first half of the year compared to the same time period in 2021. The company is implementing new technology and integrations to add more items and faster response for its customers.
Today, Aldevra is a prime contractor for several government customers, including the US Department of Veterans Affairs, US Department of Defense, US Department of Health and Human Services, and several state and local governments.
Aldevra has been recognized and awarded, including the Department of Labor 2020 HIRED Vets Medallion Platinum Award, 2021 Military-Friendly Employer, Inc.’s Vet 100, the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing US privately owned companies for a third year in a row. Additionally, Aldevra became an Army Partnership for Youth Success Program Partner, and has been recognized by the US Small Business Administration as Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year.
“Amazon Business sales are an important part of our growth, and to bring attention to our customer’s satisfaction overall,” said Dieleman. “The ability to identify as a successful, Black-Owned Business is not only beneficial to us, but to other companies like us that might feel discouraged in a difficult business environment—our hope is we can inspire other minority owned businesses like Aldevra to remain adaptable, think creatively, and enable each other to be successful.”
1 US Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy (2019)
2 Johns Hopkins University (2019)
3 National Community Reinvestment Coalition (2019)
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