Amazon to waive off seller fee by 10% to celebrate its 10 years in India

Amazon noted in a blog post that the company's goal from the start was to digitise all businesses in order to offer the largest choice of things while leveraging technology

E-commerce giant Amazon has waived off 10 per cent of its seller fees to mark its decade-long presence in India, said a report by Moneycontrol.

The company, which has been operating in India since June 5, 2013, has expanded into categories such as cloud services, e-commerce, video streaming, and more.

According to the report, the e-commerce behemoth has over 1.2 million sellers in the country, which is just slightly more than Walmart-owned Flipkart, which has 1.1 million sellers.

Amazon stated in a blog post that the company's aim from the beginning was to digitise businesses of all kinds in order to offer the widest range of items while using technology to eliminate inefficiencies and unlock greater value for customers.

It further said that the benefits supplied by Amazon's ecommerce platform, such as quick returns and access to buying alternatives in vernacular languages, helped the company gain popularity across the country.

As the company celebrates a decade-long presence in India, it stands to be the only e-commerce company to have partnered with the Indian Railways and have its own flights under Prime Air, for easy shipments, it added.

Commenting on the connectivity of the company, Abhinav Singh, VP of Operations said, “Nobody had the kind of reach that India Post did, but they were set up differently. Back then, they did not carry electronic products. We went through several months of discussions with them about the possibilities that e-commerce could unlock. Finally, they saw that this was a good move for India.”

Though Amazon maintains that the initial days of onboarding sellers were difficult as the Indian market was different in 2013, and both users and sellers were unfamiliar with e-commerce. “This challenge needed not just innovation, but Indian ingenuity and execution agility,” the e-commerce giant said.

Initially, the company only had two fulfilment sites in Mumbai and Bengaluru. However, Vivek Somareddy, VP of Seller Fulfilment, Emerging Markets, and India Exports, stated that Amazon developed Seller Flex in response to rising demand and sellers flocking to the site. This converted the seller locations into tiny Amazon FCs, eliminating the need for Amazon warehouses to intervene with shipments.

Today, Amazon is looking into further examining the country's business possibilities, citing the growing population of young people.

Manish Tiwary, country manager, India Consumer Business said, “With a young and vibrant population, rising income levels, and increasing penetration of internet and social media, the future is exciting. We remain committed to innovating for customers, and enabling small businesses and startups to contribute to India’s vision of becoming a $1 trillion digital economy.”

This year, in February, the company stated in a statement that its operations in emerging nations such as India, Brazil, and the Middle East will take some time to become profitable, but that these markets have high potential and are on the right trajectories.

The company sees the online grocery industry in India as a potential growth area. Amazon Fresh reported in April that it has grown to more than 50 cities in India by this year, up from only 22 cities the previous year.