ECommerce major Amazon’s Global Selling platform — its merchant selling division which unveiled its operations in India nine months ago — is witnessing exponential growth by adding more merchants and categories for its global buyers, and even plans to cater to the diaspora’s need for temple prasadam.
In an interaction with Deccan Herald, Amazon Vice President (International Seller Services) Eric Broussard said that besides unleashing the entrepreneurship and manufacturing capabilities of India, the Global Selling Platform’s partnership with merchants has really helped enhance the Make in India campaign.
“We do hope that it can be part of our Global Selling Platform, which has already roped in 6,000 manufacturers. Amazon, through its Selling on Amazon (SOA) and Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), helped Indian merchants reach out to global customers in May 2015. Over 23.5 million Indian products are listed on global Amazon marketplaces from India.
“At the highest level, for the first time, we are observing a tidal wave of sellers, manufacturers, small creators, small and medium companies, and large companies selling their products globally. This has been enabled by internet,” he said.
Broussard said the global selling platform enables merchants to build their brand and reach out to larger customer bases, as the company is now present in 180 countries, with a customer base of 294 million.
On catering to the devotees, Broussard said the company is actively considering this move, as Indian customers abroad are enthusiastic about their (Indian) roots and belief systems. The company is considering to rope in merchants who are aggregators in this area.
“We help the Indian merchants list their products and catalogue them on the Amazon website. We carry out fulfillment-related activities by availing our fulfillment centres’ infrastructure spread, across the globe. Amazon also undertakes tax advisory and remittance. Since we facilitate marketing products by giving a global exposure, merchants will really get cost advantage,” he said.
Amazon also allows them to avail Free Super Saver Delivery and Prime Delivery services. When asked about replicating the successful model in China, he said the company is actively considering its replication in India also.
“We have already deployed the support service in India for the global merchant platform. Besides localising our team, Amazon is also actively looking at product cataloguing and imaging activities by bringing it in local languages,” he said.
Amazon.in was launched in India as a marketplace in June 2013. Since then, it has impacted over 100,000 sellers across the country to leverage the digital economy to grow and scale profitably.
Amazon’s initial focus categories for the Global Selling Program in India are apparel, home furnishing, jewellery, books, collectibles, sporting goods, handbags, shoes and health & beauty products. It also plans to add more categories.
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