An Amazon official stated on Friday that the business plans to increase the number of small merchants on its e-commerce platform in India from the current tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands by the year 2025.
The number of new business owners who signed up this year gives us great hope. "We are looking to scale up," Bhupen Wakankar, Amazon's head of global commerce, told Reuters on the sidelines of a recent trade show.
Wakankar said that in the run-up to the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale, which begins on Friday and lasts for 11 days, there was a surge in demand for "Made in India" organic health supplements, homeware like bath towels, jute rugs, and robotic games for children.
The e-commerce giant's B2C exports platform, Amazon Global Trade, is gaining steam in India after launching in 2015 with a small number of vendors.
More than 100,000 small producers have joined the organization to supply the company's growing list of products for export, he said.
"Some of the sellers are first time exporters, including those who left their corporate jobs to start e-commerce exports," according to him.
Thousands of small exporters, who formerly lacked access to global markets, have achieved 70% business growth annually through e-commerce platform, which provides logistics support and access to more than 200 million Amazon Prime members internationally, he said.
As a result, India's exports of goods fell by 7 percent compared to the same period last fiscal year.
Categories like "beauty," "apparel," "home," "kitchen," "furniture," and "toys" saw the most expansion on the e-commerce site.
Holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year were driving sales of Indian products in markets such as the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and Germany.
For exporters that sign up for Amazon's global selling program by March 31st, Wakankar added, Amazon will reduce the subscription charge from $120 per year to just $1 per month for the first three months.
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