But as a mother of two, she had experienced more than once the awkward feeling of realising that her children were going to a birthday party in a couple of days, and had no present to give.

She started selling emergency gifts for parents on Amazon.

In less than four years she was doing nearly £10m worth of business every year, across Europe and the US.

But soon the business got too big. Finding millions of pounds to buy all the stock she needed for the rest of the year was getting difficult. “It was going to need somebody with a lot more capital,” she says.

So in 2019, when an offer came along to buy entire her business – for multiple millions – she accepted.

Amazon allows other sellers to list their wares on its website, and will even do the delivery or “fulfilment” for them through its formidable logistics network.

The sheer scale of Amazon means that if they get the products and the marketing right, small sellers can find themselves selling huge amounts quite quickly.

With the pandemic forcing many shops to close, many have seen their sales grow to the point where they find it hard to meet all their orders.

Two years ago, when Ms Venton sold up, it was relatively rare to sell businesses based entirely on selling via Amazon.

The buyer, a private individual, insists that we don’t name them or their products, for fear of attracting competitors or saboteurs – such is the hypercompetitive world of e-commerce.

But over the past year, a new generation of firms has sprung up to offer Amazon entrepreneurs like Ms Venton a way to sell their businesses.

The biggest and best-known is a US firm called Thrasio, named after an Amazon warrior in Greek mythology. They are buying one to three businesses a week, with around 10 in the UK, and an appetite for more.