A senior Amazon executive has reportedly said that the ecommerce major is eyeing exports to the tune of $20 Bn from India by 2025.
Director of global trade for Amazon Bhupen Wakankar told Reuters that the company plans to achieve this target by adding thousands of small sellers to its network and ecommerce marketplace.
“We are very encouraged by the number of entrepreneurs who signed up this year. We are looking to scale up,” Wakankar added.
He added that the upcoming 11-day ‘Black Friday Cyber Monday sale’ is expected to further spur the ‘huge’ demand for India-made organic health supplements, bath towels, jute rugs, and robotic games for children.
The ecommerce major has turned its focus towards onboarding more Indian sellers on its platform and helping them reach global audiences. The move is part of the company’s Amazon Global Trade initiative launched in 2015 and is the D2C exports platform of the ecommerce giant.
As per the report, the exports programme is gaining traction in India. From a handful of sellers at the time of its inception, Wakankar noted that the platform now boasts of more than 1 Lakh small manufacturers that sell a ‘wide range of products to customers overseas’.
Interestingly, categories such as beauty, apparel, home, kitchen, furniture, and toys have seen the highest growth on the platform. Wakankar also noted that many sellers onboarded on the platform are first-time exporters, many of whom have left corporate jobs to enter the ecommerce exports fray.
The platform has so far seen 70% year-on-year (YoY) growth, largely on the back of offerings such as streamlined logistics support and access to more than 200 Mn Amazon Prime members globally. He also added that Amazon has slashed the subscription for exporters to woo more merchants and spruce up the platform.
Wakankar expects the upcoming holiday season in the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and Germany to drive up the sales of Indian products in these countries.
The $20 Bn pitch is largely in line with the ecommerce major’s target to facilitate more and more exports out of India. Earlier this year, Amazon said that it projected its cumulative exports from India to cross the $8 Bn mark in 2023.
To spur this, the company claims to have already digitised more than 2 Mn small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India and has set a target of digitising 10 Mn small businesses. It also claims to be well poised to create as many as 2 Mn direct and indirect jobs in India by 2025.
Apart from this, Amazon also announced the launch of its cross-border logistics platform SEND in November last year to spur the participation of Indian sellers.
The ecommerce giant aims to capitalise on the growing local digital ecosystem and a diverse manufacturing setup across the country. Amazon wants to leverage this opportunity to shore up its revenues and scale.
As part of this, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, earlier this year, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US and pledged an additional investment of $15 Bn in India. With this, the US-based ecommerce company’s total investment in India will potentially stand at $26 Bn.
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