June 2, 2025, 12:13 pm | Read time: 2 minutes
According to a new report, Amazon has removed numerous products. There is a specific reason for this.
Amazon’s product offering in the international online shopping market is unparalleled: Until recently, there were reportedly around 74 billion products in its inventory. But that came to an end in late 2024, as Amazon allegedly deleted numerous products. The reason for this was said to be cost-cutting measures. Up to 24 billion items were reportedly affected.
Amazon Deleted Products Due to Cloud Costs
This information comes from a new report by Business Insider, which allegedly gained insights into relevant company documents. The initiative reportedly originated from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who named it “Bend The Curve.” TECHBOOK asked Amazon for confirmation but has not yet received a response. The goal was to clean up many listings by the end of 2024. Each item requires its own product page, which is managed in the cloud—this consumes numerous resources, primarily money.
Therefore, Amazon decided to remove about 24 billion of these product pages. This means Amazon deleted about a third of all products. The focus was reportedly on the so-called ASIN numbers (Amazon Standard Identification Number).
Major Cleanup Streamlines Offerings
Saving money with “Bend the Curve” is just one aspect. The cleanup is likely to benefit customers as well.
Amazon reportedly targeted mainly “unproductive items” and their associated product pages. These are goods whose pages haven’t been updated for more than two years or that sellers can no longer deliver due to lack of stock. Amazon also purged incomplete or faulty product pages.
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Furthermore, since 2024, Amazon has also been blocking new listings from notably underperforming seller accounts. This affects those who haven’t sold anything in the previous twelve months. The shipping giant has reportedly withheld more than 100 million products so far.
How much does cash cost?
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Cost Savings Due to High Expenses
According to the report, the company saved up to $22 million in operating costs for the servers through this action. Another cleanup is planned for 2025, with an expected savings of up to $36 million.
However, in light of total expenses, this is not very much: These are expected to amount to up to $5.7 billion for the AWS cloud infrastructure alone in 2025—a 27 percent increase compared to the previous year.