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Bengaluru, May 18
Amazon India has announced the launch of Smart Commerce, an initiative to transform local stores into Digital Dukaans, and accelerate the company’s pledge to digitise 1 crore small businesses by 2025.
Over 1.5 lakh neighbourhood stores are said to be selling online through Amazon.in. With Smart Commerce, stores can digitise their offline operations, provide an enhanced in-store shopping experience to their walk-in customers, and create their own online storefronts to serve customers directly.
Stores of any size can take advantage of Amazon’s logistics, and digital payments, among other services in their physical stores as well as their online storefront, or on Amazon.in. In the coming weeks, Smart Commerce will release its first set of solutions to help local stores digitise billing and inventory management, and deliver an enhanced in-store experience to their customers.
This will be followed by the launch of capabilities enabling them to create their own online storefront, and serve their customers through voice and chat-based shopping experiences.
Amit Agarwal, SVP, India and Emerging Markets, Amazon, said, “We are humbled by how neighbourhood stores from across India are taking advantage of our local shops on Amazon programme to go online and grow their business, with over 1.5 lakh stores already selling on Amazon.in within two years of launch. Today, we are excited to launch Smart Commerce that will enable any store to truly become a digital dukaan, and serve customers with the best of Amazon no matter where they are – in their physical store, directly through their own online storefront, or on Amazon.in. We are just getting started and remain committed to our pledge to digitise one crore small businesses by 2025.”
Digitising SMEs
At the inaugural Smbhav Summit in January 2020, Amazon pledged to digitise 10 million MSMEs, generate $10 billion in cumulative exports from India and create 2 million jobs in India by 2025. The company said it is on track to fulfil these pledges and even go beyond in some areas. Amazon said it has doubled its exports pledge from $10 billion to $20 billion in the same time frame.
Manish Tiwary, Country Manager, India Consumer Business, Amazon India, said, “Over the last two years, we have invested significantly towards the pledges we announced at the inaugural Smbhav Summit in 2020. We are humbled to share that we have already digitised over 4 million small businesses and local stores, are on track to enable $5 billion in cumulative exports and have created over 1.16 million direct and indirect jobs in India including 1,35,000 new jobs added in the last one year.”
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