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Amazon India has launched an India-first intiative, ‘Local Shops on Amazon’, which helps customers discover products from local shops in their city, while helping shopkeepers supplement their footfalls beyond their catchment areas with a digital presence.
The launch comes after a six-month pilot with 5,000-plus local shops/ retailers from tier-1 and tier-2 cities such as Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Surat, Lucknow, Indore, Faridabad, Saharanpur, Kota, and Varanasi, among others. The pilot included sellers from different categories including like kitchen, home, furniture, apparel, automotive, beauty, electronics, sports, grocery, lawn & garden, books, toys, jewellery and appliances.
Local shops/retailers of any size, from any part of India, across categories, can join and benefit from the “Local Shops on Amazon” programme, using their existing delivery mechanisms to deliver to customers. The programme allows shopkeepers to choose the areas where they can deliver on the same or next day.
Value-added services
Shopkeepers can provide customers in their city additional value-added services like product demonstration, installation support, easy customisations and device data transfer, among others. In case they want to expand their serviceable areas within the city or nationally, they can choose to work with Amazon to fulfil their orders. Local shops are required to use the newly launched ‘Amazon Delivery App’ to provide accurate delivery updates to customers and Amazon.
“This could well be the defining moment when local shops leapfrog the commentary of “offline vs online” and instead embrace technology to transform themselves into digital and hybrid stores. We expect that this programme will enable local shops to better serve their local customers and also dream bigger of going national or even global by joining some of our other programmes. We intend to take the learnings from running this pilot and weeks of its effectiveness during Covid-19 to scale this India-first initiative to include shopkeepers and retailers across India. We are pledging ₹10 crore to immediately expand our pilot to on-board and train any motivated retailer or shopkeeper who is ready to lean forward with us in this exciting journey,” said Gopal Pillai, Vice-President, Seller Services at Amazon India.
Some shopkeepers who are already on the programme include Delhi Electronics Plaza, mysleepyhead, Green Soul, Sangeetha Mobiles, Arya Organic Products, Comfort Bedding, Shoe Mistri, Electro Kart, The Mattress Hub, Adith Electronics, Raw Pressery and Weguarantee. They are showcasing products ranging from consumer electronics to mattresses, kitchen items to grocery and consumables, apparel and shoes to gifts, and even fresh flowers and cakes.
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