It is worth noting that Amazon is having a hard time in India due to the competition from local players as well as local players with foreign funding such as Walmart-owned Flipkart. However, it is still worth noting that the operations for Amazon India started on June 5, 2013 and it has now been 10 years of operating the business in the country.
On this occasion, Amazon India plans to give back to its sellers who have put the trust on their platform to sell. Amazon said in a statement that “it will waive off 10 percent from the seller fee for all transactions on June 5, 2023”. As of now, Amazon India says that they have 1.2 million registered sellers which is closely followed by 1.1 million sellers reported by Flipkart, its closest rival. It is also worth noting that over the years, Amazon has invested $6.5 billion into its India business and says that there is a long way to go but they have exciting times ahead.
Amazon India’s country manager, Manish Tiwary, said “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,” and added that “It’s been an incredible journey of making an Amazon in India, for India. We are truly just getting started. With a young and vibrant population, rising income levels, and increasing penetration of (the) internet and social media, the future is exciting,”.
Amazon says that “After having digitised over 4 million small businesses, enabled over $5 billion in cumulative exports, and created more than 1.1 million direct and indirect jobs, Amazon pledged to deliver more. By 2025, Amazon plans to digitise 10 million small businesses, enable $20 billion in exports, and create 2 million jobs”.
Having said that, it does look like Amazon India’s investments have not been extremely fruitful as of now because the company did not even mention its India business in the last quarterly update which does tell you that they have something to hide or that their numbers are not significant enough compared to its other businesses. A consultancy firm named Redseer also highlighted that “the growth in e-commerce gross merchandise value (GMV) was slowing after years of steep growth”.
