With discounts and deals, consumers are the focus. But Amazon says in the days leading to the start of the sale season, it has lined up a slew of incentives and innovations for its sellers. “Amazon started its India operation in 2013 and till 2020 we had reached a base of five-and-a-half lakh sellers. Today, we have about 1.4 million sellers, which means in about three years we have reached from five-and-a-half lakh to 1.4 million sellers,” says Gaurav Bhatnagar, Head of Seller Acquisition & Development, Amazon India. Over 90% of these sellers are small and mid-sized businesses.
Bhatnagar adds it is heartening to see that sellers are not just domiciled in metros, but over 50% of the sellers today come from tier-II to -IV cities. In a conversation with ET Digital, Bhatnagar talks about the various initiatives the company has rolled out ahead of the festive season, the role of technology, and how small sellers now depend on Amazon for logistics. Edited excerpts:
Economic Times (ET): Small and medium enterprises form a sizable number of sellers on Amazon. How has the ecommerce marketplace geared up for the festive season sale?
Gaurav Bhatnagar (GB): The Great Indian Festival last year saw over 35,000 MSME partners or sellers receiving their highest ever single-day sales. Over 4,000 sellers, in fact, grew over five times, which reflects the demand and growth that our MSME partners see during this time.
To ensure our partners do even better, we have a couple of things lined up. The first one is that we have introduced a 50% referral fee waiver from August 27 to November 4 for any new MSME, any new seller who onboards onto our platform. They will get this benefit for 60 days. That gives them the initial support or the fillip to invest and start their journey on the marketplace.
Over the last decade, we have innovated many things. Right at the onset of this festive season, we have introduced a couple of things which will help MSMEs grow and become successful. So, one of the first things we have introduced is called SSR 2.0, which is a self-service registration system where we have made our new selling partners onboarding very easy. All they need to do is input their mobile and GST number and the system fetches the required information. It then helps and guides them through the onboarding process.
The second thing we have done is launch a feature called ‘sale event planner’. It helps them do two things primarily. One, help them offer the best of deals to customers, and configure them seamlessly. The second bit is it helps them to manage inventory and provide predictions and recommendations on what could be the inventory they should plan for in the upcoming sale. So, the planner allows them to do two things: get the best of inventory and offer the best deals.Starting an ecommerce journey can be overwhelming for new sellers, and our third product tackles that. We have introduced the New Seller Success Centre (NSSC). The NSSC is designed to be a helpful, onboarding companion for first-time sellers. It offers step-by-step guidance on preparing their online shops for business and embracing essential growth programmes such as Ads, Prime and Deals.
ET: What are the data points of sellers on Amazon India?
GB: About 50% of our sellers are from tier-2 and -3 cities and when it comes to global selling, we have enabled over 125,000 sellers to clock about $8 billion in cumulative exports through the programme. Amazon Karigar (for weavers and artisans) impacts over 1.6 million artisans with a selection of over 200,000 handmade products, including over 470 unique art and craft items from across the country. Amazon Saheli impacts 1.8 million women entrepreneurs with a selection spanning categories such as apparel, jewellery and groceries. Similarly, Amazon Launchpad showcases over 200,000 unique products offered by about 1,000 startups and emerging brands. Local Shops has about 300,000 offline retailers and neighbourhood stores selling on Amazon.in.
ET: So, in terms of what works and what does not work, what have you seen over the years when it comes to SME sellers? What is the playbook?
GB: I think we keep learning from our sellers. One thing that we have seen is that 90% of our sellers use Amazon logistics, technology and fulfilment services in some form. That is because logistics is one of the more difficult parts. So, over the years, we have set up Amazon Seller Flex System and Amazon EasyShip. Now, what these two services do is it allows MSMEs and sellers to seamlessly use Amazon’s transportation or logistics network to ship products from their own warehouse, dispatch it and deliver to the customer premises.
Equally, a lot of sellers look at leveraging the fulfilment centres. So, the innovations that we have done — we have developed logistics, technology — have been very valuable for our selling partners.
For example, recently we launched multi-channel fulfilment (MCF). It allows sellers to seamlessly manage logistics of orders originating from any channel. If an order originates from their own website, they can leverage their inventory, which is placed with our fulfilment centres, to ship that to customers. Before this, they had to manage a different inventory, order management system, tracking systems for different channels. Now, MCF allows them to seamlessly keep inventory at one place and leverage Amazon technology and fulfilment capabilities to service orders coming from any channel.
iStockThe second learning has been on how we design for Bharat. We have several sellers from tier-II, -III cities, so we have mobile technology at the forefront. We were the first in the country to launch mobile-based seller apps to make sure that the sellers can manage their business on Amazon using a mobile app. Now over 60% of our selling partners use the mobile application for managing their seller business on Amazon. That becomes very important because not everyone in a tier-II, tier-III city would manage a desktop and laptop.
Third is languages. We operate in and allow transactions and business in over eight languages. Similarly, our Saheli, Karigar and Local Stores programme are all based on learnings. There is innovation happening out there. But every set of sellers, every set of MSMEs have a different capability, and the support they need varies. Our endeavour has been to design programmes that can help them in their journey.
ET: How does demand look for this year’s festive season, especially for SMEs?
GB: So, when we were meeting sellers in the last few weeks as a run-up to the festive season, I sensed a lot of optimism and buoyancy. This is in terms of the way the sellers are gearing up as well as in terms of the way they have planned the sale and what they are looking forward to.
We had over 15,000 sellers, for example, during the Prime Day in July who got their highest ever single-day sales in a two-day event. SMBs on Prime Day Sale received 20 orders every second and over 90,000 SMB sellers received orders from Prime members across 19,000 pin codes in India. So, we are very optimistic in terms of how the festive season is expected to shape up for our sellers at this stage.
ET: Many MSMEs can have a brilliant product, but they may be an unknown entity. What should an MSME do to make its product visible and acceptable?
GB: It is a consistent playbook for every MSME and selling partner. The playbook is about helping them build a compelling product catalogue that amplifies what the product is about and helps showcase its benefits. And every product detail page has that feature for MSMEs. We also have a network of 3P agencies called SPN Network, which is a service provider network that can help MSMEs build these catalogues. SPN partners are available in 18 languages in over 300-plus cities.
Sellers can also leverage sponsored ads, digital marketing tools and finally it depends on how good your customers rate you. Eventually, that is going to play, and that is how the search works — it is a combination of customer feedback, keywords, and the way a product page has been designed.
