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MSME

Amazon India Helped 2.5 Firms in MSME Sector Go Digital

The e-commerce giant, Amazon India said that it has digitised 2.5 Million micro, small and medium enterprises in the country. The company had last year announced that it will invest $1 Billion to digitally enable 10 Million firms belonging to the MSME sector by 2025. The ongoing pandemic has also pushed several businesses to shift online, as per report, the number of sellers venturing online have increased by 50 per cent since the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent lockdown.

Not only the MSMEs, the e-commerce platform is increasingly hosting several local shops. Amazon India has a ‘Local Shop Programme’ through which the company aims to brings neighbourhood kirana stores on it’s online marketplace. The programme is said to have gone up around 10 times in the past six months to exceed more than 50,000 offline sellers.

The Indian local and regional language option available on Amazon India’s website has also helped in the increase of sellers to enter the online marketplace. Around one third of the sellers have signed up in local languages mostly Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Marathi, said Amazon India’s Global Senior Vice President and Country Head Amit Agarwal. MSMEs in Karnataka To Benefit As Amazon India Inks Pact With Karnataka Govt To Increase Their Exports on Global Selling Platform.

Amazon India has also enabled a cumulative exports of $3 Billion under its Global Selling programme. Over 70,000 businesses are currently a part of this initiative by the e-commerce giant. The firm has also created around 7,00,000 employment opportunities until last year and added 3,00,000 more jobs during the preceding year, generating a total of 1 Million job opportunities in the country. Amazon India & CII Sign MoU to Help MSMEs Adopt E-Commerce & Digitisation of Business.

Recently, the firm had inked an agreement with the Karnataka industries and commerce department to help MSMEs in the state in increasing their exports on its global selling platform. Under this Amazon will be able to train and onboard MSMEs across the state on its global selling platform for driving their exports to customers in 200 countries the world over. The e-commerce giant’s platform lowers entry barriers for firms in MSME sector to expand their business on a global level.

Categories
Startup

Amazon Partners With Startup India and Others To Help Startups Reach Global Audiences; Here’s All You Need To Know About the Startup Accelerator Programme

In a bid to help early-stage startups take their brands to global audiences, Amazon has partnered with Startup India, Sequoia Capital India and Fireside Ventures. The collaboration, announced on January 19, will launch an accelerator programme to help and guide the startups. As part of the Startup Accelerator, Amazon has constituted a mentorship board consisting of Amazon leaders from India and across the world, VCs and senior leaders from Startup India. The application process will be open for about three weeks, following which 10 startups would be chosen for the accelerator.

Here’s How the startups will benefit from the Startup Accelerator

  1. Amazon will provide the support for these startups to launch their products worldwide through its exports programme – Amazon Global Selling.
  2. These startups will then get an opportunity to showcase their business proposition to partner VC firms – Sequoia Capital India and Fireside Ventures and three of them will get a chance to win a total equity free grant of USD 50,000 from Amazon.
  3. Amazon will also host open virtual mentorship sessions focused on peer learning by inviting veteran entrepreneurs and members from its mentorship board for startups, to network and learn from their existing ecosystem.
  4. Abhijit Kamra, Director – Global Trade at Amazon India, said that the programme will feature a six-week 1:1 mentorship module for the shortlisted participants where they will get to interact with Amazon leaders from India and worldwide and get firsthand knowledge on building and scaling up exports business through e-commerce.

The Amazon Global Selling Propel (AGSP) programme has been designed to support early stage startups (raised funding in post seed to pre-series A stage, if funded) in the consumer products space to launch in international markets and create global brands from India through Amazon’s Global Selling programme.

Deepak Bagla, MD and CEO of Invest India, said that the adoption of technology and digital transformation has paved the way for India to be at the forefront of innovation, giving rise to some of the best startups in the world. He said there are many promising, emerging brands that have the capability to become big and go global. Bagla said that his is a timely initiative by Amazon which can prove to be a big stepping stone for startups to build their business and get access to global markets.

Launched in 2015 with about 100 exporters, Amazon Global Selling today enables more than 70,000 Indian exporters to sell ”Made in India” products through its 15 international websites and reach customers in countries such as the US, the UK, UAE, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Netherlands, Turkey, Brazil, Japan, Australia and Singapore.