Dive Brief:

• Amazon Tuesday announced that it has launched a new business-to-business marketplace, dubbed Amazon Business. 

• The free marketplace will offer businesses free two-day shipping on orders over $49, multi-user accounts, and special "business-only" pricing and selection, according to the press release. 

• The company will shut down its AmazonSupply site and bring it all into the new B2B effort.

Dive Insight:

The news last week that Amazon Web Services is soaring wowed many investors and analysts, and these rumors suggest that Amazon knows what it has.

That is, a line to business services of many kinds that could be less unwieldy and more profitable than straight retail -- the market is worth more than $8.2 trillion in the U.S. alone, according to Fortune. This new venture also gives Amazon a leg up when competing with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has established itself as a key player in the business-to-business market overseas. 

In any case, sources told TechCrunch that running various B2B business lines has become a nightmare for the company, that folding one into another will smooth out logistics, and that without consolidation so far AmazonSupply hasn’t been that successful.