BENGALURU: It has been a decade since Amazon started its business in India, and on Monday, the e-commerce giant said they are on track to deliver digitisation of 1 crore small businesses, enable $20 billion in exports, and create 20 lakh jobs by 2025.
“We have already digitised over 40 lakh small businesses, enabled over $5 billion in cumulative exports, and created more than 11 lakh direct and indirect jobs,” the company said. “With a young and vibrant population, rising income levels, and increasing penetration of the 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,” said Manish Tiwary, Country Manager, India Consumer Business, in a blog post.
Amazon said when it went live on June 5, 2013, common wisdom dictated that the company would bring its global playbook to India, tweak it slightly, and make it work. But the India marketplace was built differently from the start, and was unlike Amazon in other parts of the world.
“I remember going to this popular electronics store in Mumbai to bring them on Amazon.in. We had a long discussion with them about the potential of selling online, but weren’t making much headway. Finally, after sitting in the store for over 6 hours, we managed to convince them to list a few products with us,” recalled Amit Agarwal, SVP, India & Emerging Markets.
Back in 2013, sellers weren’t queuing to sign up, and they were unfamiliar with the concept of selling online and couldn’t imagine that Indians would actually want to buy products online. “This challenge needed not just innovation, but Indian ingenuity and execution agility...Our approach from Day 1 was to digitise businesses of all sizes to enable the largest selection of products, use technology to remove inefficiencies and unlock greater value for customers,” the ecommerce company said. It also recalled the partnership with India Post in 2013 as a landmark moment.
‘India marketplace was built differently’
Amazon said when it went live on June 5, 2013, common wisdom dictated that the company would bring its global playbook to India, tweak it slightly, and make it work. India marketplace was built differently from the start, and was unlike Amazon in other parts of the world.