Tapping into the growing demands for Made In India
products, Amazon is targeting merchandise exports worth $20 billion from Bharat
by 2025 by adding thousands of small sellers to its e-commerce platform, a
company official said on Friday.
“We are very encouraged by the number of entrepreneurs
who signed up this year. We are looking to scale up,” said Amazon global trade
director Bhupen Wakankar on the sidelines of an industry event, referring to
plans for exports.
There was huge demand for “Made in India” organic
health supplements, homeware like bath towels, jute rugs, and robotic games for
children ahead of the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale, an 11-day shopping period
from Friday, said Bhupen Wakankar.
Launched in 2015 with a handful of sellers, Amazon
Global Trade, the business to consumers (B2C) exports platform of the
e-commerce giant, is gaining traction in India.
The company has added more than 100,000 small
manufacturers to sell a wide range of products to overseas customers, he said.
“Some of the sellers are first time exporters,
including those who left their corporate jobs to start e-commerce exports,” he
said.
Thousands of small exporters, who earlier lacked
access to global markets, have seen 70 per cent business growth annually
through e-commerce platform, which provided logistics support and access to
more than 200 million Amazon Prime members globally, he said.
This comes as India’s exports of goods declined 7 per
cent year-on-year during first seven months of this fiscal year.
On the e-commerce platform, the highest growth was
seen in categories like beauty, apparels, home, kitchen, furniture, and toys.
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.
To encourage exporters, Bhupen Wakankar said, Amazon
had slashed the subscription fees for its global selling programme from $120 to
$1 for the first three months for exporters signing up before March 31.
Reuters
