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Amazon India to Provide Personal Assistants to Over 1.2 Million Sellers

Amazon India to Provide Personal Assistants to Over 1.2 Million Sellers
Amazon India to Provide Personal Assistants to Over 1.2 Million Sellers

New Delhi, September 1, 2023 Bada Business – Amazon India is set to revolutionize its services for over 1.2 million sellers by offering each of them a personal assistant. The announcement was made by Mr. Manish Tiwary, the Country Manager for Consumer Business at Amazon India during the recent Amazon Smbhav SME event held in New Delhi.

This strategic move aims to streamline and enhance the delivery process for Indian SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). Amazon India unveiled its innovative generative AI initiative, ‘Assistant,’ designed to assist SMEs at all levels in utilizing Amazon’s platform. ‘Assistant’ is tailored to cater to both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy users, guiding them through the entire process of onboarding and utilizing Amazon services, effectively addressing the needs of a diverse user base.

While Amazon boasts a robust vertically integrated delivery infrastructure globally, in India, it predominantly relies on third-party service providers for its delivery network.

In a significant development, Amazon India has entered into strategic partnerships with two key entities: India Post and Indian Railways, to bolster its delivery network.

The collaboration with India Post is set to benefit SMEs seeking to expand their reach to global markets. Sellers can now simply drop their shipments at any of the over 100 India Post export centers in India. India Post will then take charge of exporting the consignments to overseas customers, simplifying the international shipping process for Amazon sellers.

entrepreneurs-Launchpad

Amazon India has already initiated operations in collaboration with Indian Railways’ Direct Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFC) along the Haryana to Gujarat route. The e-commerce giant plans to expand its local and domestic delivery network further by adding more routes and corridors in the future.

These strategic partnerships primarily target Direct-to-Customer (D2C) sellers, both Indian and international. By collaborating with India Post and Indian Railways, Amazon India aims to gather valuable seller data, enabling the company to offer more tailored and optimized solutions to its vast network of sellers.

With these initiatives, Amazon India is taking significant steps to strengthen its support for SMEs, enhance its delivery capabilities, and provide valuable assistance to its growing community of sellers.

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MSME

Amazon launches Its First ‘Digital Kendra’ To Help MSMEs Start Digital Journey!

Amazon launches its first ‘Digital Kendra’ to help MSMEs start digital Journey!
Amazon launches its first ‘Digital Kendra’ to help MSMEs start digital Journey!

Setting its first brick-and-mortar ‘Digital Kendra’ in Surat, Gujarat, Amazon India announced the launch of its first resource center in India.

Staying true to its mission to digitize 10 million Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs), Amazon ‘Digital Kendras’ will act as establishments and will provide opportunities to small business owners to learn about the benefits of e-commerce. It will also avail the third-party services like shipping and logistics support, cataloging assistance, digital marketing services, GST, and taxation support to kick start their journey towards being digital entrepreneurs.

Manish Tiwary, Vice President at Amazon India said, “This is an important step towards the commitment we have made to digitize MSMEs. Our thought process was that if Amazon can go down to these MSME clusters and handhold them through their journey of digitization, it will help small businesses take their first steps towards e-commerce. Our trained resource partners will take these MSMEs through all the services and various programs which Amazon provides.”

“Amazon believes that a sustainable way for MSMEs to get on their feet is to go digital. And having the comfort of a physical center will only help MSMEs get the right level of confidence,” added Tiwary.

Tiwary added that Amazon India has helped Indian MSMEs export $1 billion in shipments in the last 12 months, under its ‘Global Selling’ program. Of the 850,000 sellers on Amazon India, the e-commerce major has onboarded over 300,000 sellers since January 2020.

“Last year at Smbhav, we had announced that Amazon will invest $1 billion in India to help digitize 10 million Indian MSMEs by 2025. And today, we take one more important step towards that goal as we open our first Amazon ‘Digital Kendra’ in Surat, Gujarat. This is an earnest endeavor to bring the right tools, support, and services infrastructure closer to where MSMEs are based and help them benefit from e-commerce,” said Amit Agarwal, senior vice president, and country head, Amazon India.

Amazon India has more than 100,000 sellers in Gujarat, at present, Tiwary added.

Last year, during Amazon Inc founder Jeff Bezos’s visit to India, the company had announced three important commitments – to digitally enable 10 million MSMEs, enable eCommerce exports worth $10 billion and create 1 million additional jobs in India between 2020 and 2025.

Based on the feedback for its first ‘Digital Kendra’, Amazon India will look to open more such resource centers in the country.

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Business motivation News

Amazon India Announces Small Business Days 2021 To Help Small Sellers To Bounce Back!

Amazon India Announces Small Business Days 2021 To Help Small Sellers To Bounce Back
Amazon India Announces Small Business Days 2021 To Help Small Sellers

In a bid to aid small sellers to bounce back from the financial losses that were induced by the pandemic second wave of COVID-19, Amazon India announced that the company host Amazon Small Business Days (SBD) that will begin from midnight on July 2, 2021, until 11:59 pm on July 4, 2021.

“As India tries to get back on track post the impact of the COVID-19 second wave, we are prioritizing our efforts to help small businesses bounce back from the economic disruption. Towards this, we are hosting Amazon Small Business Days, to help generate customer demand for offerings from small sellers on the Amazon India marketplace thus helping them to get their business back on track,” said Pranav Bhasin, Director, MSME & Selling Partner Experience, Amazon India.

During the three-day sale event, customers will have the opportunity to discover and purchase as well as enjoy deals and offer on products across categories including monsoon essentials, immunity boosters, regional handicrafts, at-home fitness supplies, etc. among many more from the special themed stores on the marketplace.

Whether customers are looking to purchase Work from Home essentials, comfort food or heritage handloom weaves straight from regional weavers, Small Business Days will have the widest selection on offer for everyone. Customers can save more with a cashback offer of up to 10% powered by A-pay and on other forms of digital payments for purchases made from participating small businesses.

Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways; Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India, said, “MSMEs are the backbone of our economy, contributing to nearly 30% of the country’s GDP and half of its exports. Around 6 crore MSME units across the country employ over 11 crore persons.”

“MSMEs contribute significantly to the socio-economic growth of the country by fostering entrepreneurship and generating large employment opportunities. I believe that technology will play a key role in the success of MSMEs, and in increasing the contribution of MSMEs’ share to the country’s GDP. It is important to accelerate the growth of MSMEs especially after the disruptions caused by COVID-19 and I congratulate Amazon for hosting Small Business Day to help generate customer demand for their products and revive livelihoods of lakhs of MSMEs in the country”, he added.

“Customers will be able to discover thousands of unique products from local shops, women entrepreneurs, start-ups, emerging brands, artisans, and weavers, at a great value, making their shopping experience enjoyable,” added Pranav Bhasin.

Small Business Days 2021 is a sale event part of Amazon India’s efforts to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sellers. Over the past few months, with the onset of the second wave of the pandemic in India, Amazon has taken a host of measures to help sellers including a variety of fee waivers, relaxation of policies on reimbursements and performance metrics, and more.

Amazon is also providing vaccination support to its sellers and their dependents. In addition, Amazon has also enabled an ‘on-demand disbursement’ feature that enables sellers to get their disbursements daily to help sellers navigate the economic challenges during these challenging times.

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Technology

SMBs in India Get Major Boost As AWS Launches ‘Amazon Digital Suite’ To Help Businesses Overcome Challenges of Technology Adoption

onlline business

New Delhi, April 19: With an aim to boost the startup ecosystem in India, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Cloud arm of Amazon has launched a curated set of software solutions aimed at empowering the SMBs in the country. The initiative will help to digitise 10 million Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs) by 2025. Touted as ‘Amazon Digital Suite’, it provides a broad selection of business software focused on SMBs from seven AWS Partner Network (APN) Technology Partners in areas such as accounting, customer support, and human resources.

It must be noted that all Amazon Digital Suite software can be purchased individually with discounts of up to 75 per cent from the suggested retail prices, the AWS said in a statement. As per details by the company, the ‘Amazon Digital Suite’ is now available for purchase on amazon.in. Prices of the products that are part of the Amazon Digital Suite begin at as low as Rs 20.

Here’s how the ‘Amazon Digital Suite’ will help Indian SMBs:

  1. Puneet Chandok, President-Commercial Sales, AISPL, AWS India and South Asia said the Amazon Digital Suite brings the best of what AWS and Amazon offer as an affordable, simple-to-use, and value-driven package
  2. Customers purchasing the Amazon Digital Suite during the ‘Amazon Smbhav 2021′ event from April 15-23 will be eligible for discounts of up to 30 percent in the Amazon Digital Suite store.
  3. With the Amazon Digital Suite, SMBs can overcome the challenges of technology adoption, digitise their operations, innovate in their business, accelerate their growth, and help India prosper.
  4. The Amazon Digital Suite comprises various solutions from Razorpay, Freshworks, greytHR, ClearTax, Zoho, Vinculum and OkCredit.

Vedanarayanan Vedantham, Head – SME Business, Razorpay said that the launch of the Amazon Digital Suite will be a game changer; it will empower millions of SMBs of any size, and make it possible for them to reach new customers around the world.

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Business motivation Technology

Indian Startups Get Major Boost As Amazon India Rolls Out $250 Mn ‘Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund’ To Invest in Technology-Led Startups

startup ipo india

New Delhi, April 15: With a view to encourage the startup ecosystem in India, e-commerce major Amazon on Thursday announced a $250 million fund to help businesses grow and achieve new heights. Amazon India launched the ‘Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund’ which it would invest in startups and entrepreneurs focusing on technology innovations in SMB digitisation, agriculture and healthcare. According to reports, the fund was announced in the opening session of Amazon India’s flagship event Smbhav.

Here’s how the ‘Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund’ would benefit startups in India:

  1. Amazon India said that the venture fund will invest in technology-led startups that are passionate about unlocking possibilities of a digital India.
  2. The fund will specifically focus on encouraging the best ideas to digitise SMBs (small & medium businesses), and drive technology-led innovation in agriculture to improve farmer productivity.
  3. Moreover, Amazon announced plans to digitally empower and bring 1 million offline retailers and neighbourhood stores online, on the Amazon India marketplace, by 2025 through the ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ programme.
  4. The launch of the Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund aims to attract best ideas and empower entrepreneurs in the country to partner in this vision.

Amazon also launched the ‘Spotlight North East’ initiative at the same event to bring 50,000 artisans, weavers and small businesses online from the eight states in the north-eastern region of India by 2025 and to boost exports of key commodities like tea, spices and honey from the region.

Amit Agarwal, Global Senior VP and Country Head, Amazon India said in his address that in the year 2020, the firm pledged to digitise 10 million SMBs, enable $10 billion in exports, and create 1 million jobs by 2025. “Through our initiatives, we are committed to being a catalyst and a partner in unlocking the possibilities for a Digital India, and realise the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat as put forth by the PM”, he said. “Additionally, our initiatives to onboard 1 million offline shops on Amazon.in and digitally empower the northeast region will accelerate the progress towards a digital and self-reliant India,” he added.

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Startup

Amazon India Rolls Out ‘Mentor Connect’ Programme for Startups; Here’s How It Will Boost the Startup Ecosystem in the Country

startup ipo india

Bengaluru, April 15: In a bid to help the startup ecosystem in India, Amazon India has rolled out its ‘Mentor Connect’ programme for thousands of startups and emerging brands. The programme has been introduced ahead of the company’s flagship event ‘Smbhav’. The Amazon Mentor Connect programme is aimed at accelerating the growth of start-ups and emerging brands owners enrolled in the “Amazon Launchpad” programme. Amazon Launchpad showcases differentiated products from startups and emerging brands to millions of Amazon customers. The second edition of “Amazon Smbhav” will be hosted from April 15-18.

Here’s how Amazon India’s ‘Mentor Connect’ programme would help the startups:

  1. Amazon’s ‘Mentor Connect’ programme will help startups gain exclusive access to guidance from venture capitalists, industry veterans and Amazon leaders through expert knowledge sharing sessions, networking events and one-on-one mentorship sessions.
  2. Mentors from educational institutions and VC firms like Fireside Ventures, DSG Consumer Partners, Elevation Capital, and Tomorrow Capital have already signed up for this programme and are looking forward to contributing to the Indian startup growth story, Amazon said.
  3. Startups and emerging brands enrolled in the Amazon Launchpad programme can access guidance from these mentors through various ways.
  4. This includes one to one mentorship with chosen mentors over a 3-month period, ongoing networking opportunities with a wider pool of industry experts, or knowledge sharing sessions between these experts and other Launchpad brands.
  5. This offers entrepreneurs a platform to engage, learn and showcase their startups to the industry’s leading subject matter experts to help tackle strategic and functional challenges.
  6. Amazon said that the Mentor Connect programme will also be extended to the winners of the Amazon Smbhav Entrepreneurship challenge in the upcoming Amazon Smbhav summit.
  7. The winners will be the first cohort of startups to receive the benefits associated with the Amazon Mentor Connect programme.

Pranav Bhasin, Director, MSME & Selling Partner Experience, Amazon India, said in a statement said that with Amazon Mentor Connect programme, the firm aims to create a support system to help startups unlock their potential. It would provide them with the right kind of mentoring that can help them scale their business, avoid blind spots, learn from experience of existing leaders, open new doors and help them unlock infinite possibilities for a Digital India.

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MSME

Amazon India Helped 2.5 Firms in MSME Sector Go Digital

Online Business| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Pixabay)
Business| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

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.

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MSME

Amazon India & CII Sign MoU to Help MSMEs Adopt E-Commerce & Digitisation of Business

Amazon India and CII tie up to help MSMEs| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Facebook)
Amazon India and CII tie up to help MSMEs| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Facebook)

E-commerce giant Amazon India and the Confederation of Indian Industry on Thursday signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU), following which they aim to bring benefits of digitisation of businesses to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in ten states across India. “As part of the MoU, Amazon.in and CII will conduct trainings, workshops and host masterclasses to enable MSMEs to sell online. Amazon and CII will work together to create a special exports module to simplify exports with e-commerce for lakhs of MSMEs across India,” Amazon.in said in a statement. Amazon India to Host 4th Edition of Small Business Day 2020 on December 12, to Support Startups to Sustain Their Business Growth.

Amazon also intends to work with the Ministry of MSMEs and enable MSMEs across the country to take their business online so as to ensure a wider customer base for them, not only in India but at a global level. As a part of this initiative, the CII and Amazon will publish regular reports on market analysis and conditions to help the MSMEs foresee any opportunity and be ready for threats. They will also publish insights for enterprises on promising categories, marketing, and branding of their products, logistics, MSME success stories and information on top performing products and services. IIT Kharagpur Develops Portable AI-Based Device to Enable Automatic Inspection of Goods in MSME Sector.

The Director General of CII, Chandrajit Banerjee, said that their initiative will help Indian MSMEs to reach customers at a global level. She added, “education about e-commerce and e-commerce exports will enable MSMEs to identify opportunities that help them access national and global customers.”  Adding, “We are excited about our partnership with Amazon that will help bring e-commerce closer to MSMEs and drive their digital transformation.”

Early this year, Amazon India had made three key announcements including digitising 10 Million MSMEs, enabling $10 Billion in e-commerce exports and creating 1 Million jobs, by 2025.”As we continue to work closely with the government on this important agenda, our collaboration with CII will help bring more and more MSMEs online, help them be part of the growing digital economy and create newer business opportunities for them,” said Amit Agarwal, Senior VP and Country Head, Amazon India.

Recently Nitin Gadkari the Union Minister for MSMEs had also talked about the importance of technology and digitisation of the sector. “In the next 5 years, technology and e-commerce will play a key role in enabling this growth and ensuring the success of millions of MSMEs in domestic as well as international markets. The combined efforts of government and the Industry will bring us closer to realizing the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” he had said.

 

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Startup

Amazon India to Host 4th Edition of Small Business Day 2020 on December 12, to Support Startups to Sustain Their Business Growth

Amazon (Photo Credits: Twitter)

Bangalore, December 8: Amazon India announced that the e-commerce major will host the fourth edition of its Small Business Day (SBD) 2020 from midnight on December 12 until 11.59 pm on the same day.

According to an IANS report, the online event would offer customers an opportunity to discover and purchase unique and hard-to-find products from start-ups, women entrepreneurs, weavers, local shops. It will be instrumental in supporting these small businesses to sustain their accelerated business growth.

On Small Business Day, products across categories including work from home essentials; safety and hygiene supplies; eco-friendly products, kitchenware; sports essentials; Christmas special products and others will be available on the marketplace.

Manish Tiwary, VP Amazon India, said in a statement said, “At Amazon, we are committed to supporting our 7 lakh+ sellers to continue the momentum built up over the past months through various sale events. With the upcoming Small Business Day, we want to create an opportunity for SMB sellers and B2B sellers to generate greater customer demand, revenue, and end the year on a positive note.”

Amazon Business customers can avail an exclusive business customer only cashback of 10 percent and additional savings on GST input tax credit. In addition to Small Business Day, the e-comm major also announced that it will celebrate All India Handicrafts Week 2020 starting December 8 to December 14. The objective of the event is to increase awareness about indigenously produced handicrafts from different parts of the country.

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Startup

Amazon Opens ‘Made-in-India’ Toy Store to Help Local Manufacturers to Take on the Deluge of Chinese Toys in the Indian Market

Toys
Toys (Representational Image) (Photo Credits: Piqsels)

Bangalore, November 18: Giving a further push to PM Narendra Modi’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, Amazon India on Wednesday launched a toy store. This store will give an opportunity to sellers from 15 Indian states to showcase unique toys across categories like traditional, handmade and educational.

According to an IANS report, the launch of the “made in India” toy store will thus help the local manufacturers to fight against the huge competition from the Chinese toys which have entered the Indian market.

Amazon informed that these toys will be inspired by Indian culture, folk tales as well as toys that encourage scientific thinking and innovation. This will surely boost the homegrown emerging Indian brands and also help local artisans to accelerate their business.

Here are the 3 sections under which one can sell their Made-in-India toys: 

Traditional Indian section: This will showcase toys like Chowka Bara, Pitthu/Lagori, Lattu (wooden spinning tops) and more.

Handmade toys section: This will showcase handmade toys and dolls from karigars of various states like Channapatna, Thanjavur and Varanasi, to name a few.

Innovative and educational toys: This section will feature DIY (do-it-yourself) Microscope, 4D Educational AR (augmented reality) game, science experiment kits and more.

All these toys have been manufactured by homegrown Indian brands like Smartivity, Shumee, Skillmatics, Shifu, Einstein box.