Amazon will invest an incremental $1 billion in digitising small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India over the next five years, founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said on Wednesday.
“We are going to use Amazon’s size, scope, and global footprint to export $10 billion of ‘Make in India’ goods by 2025,” Bezos said at the inaugural Amazon SMBhav Summit, addressing small and medium-sized business owners, in New Delhi.
As part of this effort, Amazon will aim to digitize 10 million MSMEs and help them grow by selling online across the world through the Amazon Global Selling program. Amazon claims to currently have more than 550,000 sellers on its India marketplace with more than 60,000 Indian manufacturers and brands exporting their “Make in India” products to customers across the world.
“We’re committed to being a long-term partner of India. Our hope is that this investment will bring millions more people into the future prosperity of India and at the same time expose the world to the ‘Make in India’ products that represent India’s rich, diverse culture.” Bezos said.
Amazon will establish 100 Digital Haats in cities and villages across the country that will provide services like e-commerce onboarding, imaging and cataloging, warehouse space, logistics, digital marketing, and compliance, available to MSMEs irrespective of their association with the company.
Apart from this, it will also expand the Amazon Easy and “I Have Space” programmes to provide additional income opportunities, the company said in a statement. Amazon Easy enables kirana shops to set up kiosks that will allow their customers to place orders on Amazon and earn commission on the sales while the “I Have Space” programme allows local stores to use their shops as a mini delivery center.
These comments, however, come at a time when the e-commerce giant is facing a backlash from local traders who are alleging predatory practices like deep discounting and preferential seller treatment by the company. Earlier this week, India’s competition watchdog Competition Commission of India had ordered an antitrust probe into alleged violations of competition laws by Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart.
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