Kolkata: The e-commerce market has evolved by leaps and bounds ever since Flipkart began selling books online in 2007. In less than a decade, the total market size of this business in India has swelled to more than Rs.2 Lakh Crore, in spite of what critics claimed continued to be a touch-and-feel mindset among the purchasers.
Close on the heels of Flipkart, others joined the bandwagon as Amazon, Snapdeal, eBay and a host of other global players hit the ground running, while a slew of VC-funded start-ups came to the fore and began selling pretty much everything from food items to ingredients, pharma to latest technology. As you read this, Amazon is being considered the front-runner for e-commerce in India.
Thus, it is no surprise that Amazon, keeping in mind its target of becoming the world’s largest company in this space, scored over rivals Flipkart and Snapdeal in the Indian market with another innovating measure.
They have taken a leaf out of the brick-and-mortar retail business by setting up ‘Seller Cafes’ across 24 cities of the country to provide on-ground support to seller partners who use the platform to actually sell to the end customer. The reason: They want to make a killing during the upcoming festival seasons of Dussehra and Diwali.
Read more: Amazon Overtakes Flipkart: Here’s How They Did It
As with its competitors, Amazon too has been making a strong pitch to get sellers on board via their innovative programs and this is yet another one. The company believes that sellers are the backbone of any e-commerce platform and hence this could be the ideal means for them to get trained and getting familiarized and comfortable with the online marketplace.
Though not stating the obvious, published media reports quoting an Amazon Indian official makes it clear that the company is going after small and medium business, often owned by enterprises similar to those who form the channel backbone of IT sales in India. “This is a good sign for small and medium businesses, enabling more to join our seller platforms,” said Gopal Pillai, Director and GM, Seller Services at Amazon India [Read the full story here]
Amazon already has a network of 1.2 lakh sellers ahead of the festive season. In the last six weeks, the e-tailer reportedly added 20,000 new sellers through its unique seller initiatives. The marketplace has expanded its delivery network by five times and partnered with over 12,500 stores in more than 50 cities with a majority of them in tier II and III towns, as per the agency report.
Pillai indicated the ’seller cafe’ program is a pilot ahead of the festive season and they could continue the initiative based on demand going forward. For this, Amazon has repurposed some of its seller’s sales offices to set up the cafes. For instance, it now has over 1,400 e-commerce specialist freelancers across 16 cities that we have trained and certified to provide help to sellers.
The US-based e-tailer has been aggressively expanding its operations in India. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said in June that the company would invest an additional USD 3 billion in India, boosting its committed investment in the country to over USD 5 billion. [Read the full story here]
A Forrester survey further confirms Bezos’ commitment as it observed in a report that 76 per cent of respondents purchased online from Amazon in 2016 [till June] as against just 30 per cent in 2014. In comparison, the growth has been flat for its immediate rival Flipkart, which saw 68 per cent respondents buying from it in 2016 compared to 64 per cent in 2014.
Read more: Why Domestic E-Tailers Have Reasons To Fear Amazon
The ecommerce battle in India is expected to get intense in the coming months, thanks to the festive season. A recent study by AT Kearney and Google suggests that online retailing in India will treble to 175 million shoppers by 2020, touching a whopping USD 100 billion in that year. With Amazon making its ambitious announcements, it needs to be seen now what Flipkart and Snapdeal bring to table this festive season.