Third-party sales on Amazon grew from $0.1 billion to $160 billion over the period discussed, a compound annual growth rate of 52%.
Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
Identify the period the letter covers (from 1999 to 2018). True: Amazon's figures show third-party sales of about $0.1 billion at the start of the period and about $160 billion at the end, and the compound annual growth rate implied by those figures and years is about 52% (within about 1 percentage point). Mostly true: both sales figures are right, but the stated growth rate is off by a few percentage points, or the period is described slightly differently. Mixed: one sales figure is right and the other is materially wrong, or the growth rate is far off. Mostly false: the figures mix incompatible measures (for example, gross merchandise volume against revenue), giving a misleading picture. False: Amazon's records show third-party sales figures far from those stated.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 Amazon Gross Merchandise Volume $277 Billion in 2018 Marketplace Pulse · 12 April 2019
“In 1999 sellers on Amazon did $100 million in sales, in 2018 sellers on Amazon did $160 billion in sales.”
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E2 [PDF] Statement of Nate Sutton Associate General Counsel, Competition U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary (testimony of Amazon.com, Inc. representative) · 16 July 2019 Own record
“Since 1999, the gross physical merchandise sales of third-party sellers in Amazon’s stores—primarily comprised of small and medium-sized businesses—have grown from $0.1 billion to $160 billion in 2018.”
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E3 As 3rd-party sellers take over, Amazon's own market share loses 10 points Retail Dive · 14 June 2019
“[Amazon's Gross Merchandise Value is] overestimated historically as well,”
Reasoning
The two sales figures check out. An independent source [E2] reports that Amazon sellers did $100 million in sales in 1999 and $160 billion in 2018. Amazon's congressional testimony [E3] gives the same figures, from $0.1 billion in 1999 to $160 billion in 2018, and says they measure third-party sellers' gross merchandise sales. The growth rate does not check out as closely: going from $0.1 billion to $160 billion over the 19 years from 1999 to 2018 works out to about 47% a year, not 52%. That gap of a few percentage points matches the "mostly true" standard; [E4]'s point that Amazon's gross merchandise value has been overestimated historically does not show the figures are wrong.
Cite this claim
Jeff Bezos, “Third-party sales on Amazon grew from $0.1 billion to $160 billion over the period discussed, a compound annual growth rate of 52%.” (said April 2019). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_aefebad2571f, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_aefebad2571f
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Jeff Bezos
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Mixed
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Mostly true
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Resolved true
“Amazon stock in a very short period of time went from $113 a share to $6 a share.”
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Mostly true
“More than 1.9 million small and medium-sized businesses sell in our store, and they make up close to 60% of our retail sales.”
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Resolved true
“Our net income in 2020 was $21.3 billion.”
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.