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Amazon India, which started the year with over 6,00,000 sellers on its platform, is offering them waivers, refunds, rewards and incentives to cope with the challenges they are facing during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The e-tail giant is offering a 50 per cent waiver on SoA (Selling on Amazon) fees till the end of June 2020 to all those sellers who average GMS (gross merchandise sales) of ₹10,000 or below in January and February. The SoA fee is a percentage of the total sales price that is paid by the buyer. Waiver of storage fees for sellers who use FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) and store their inventory in Amazon’s Fulfilment Centres is being offered till April 30. Additionally, long-term storage fees to store lower priority, non-essential products at Amazon’s FCs until further notice on the lockdown is being offered for March and April 2020.
“Today, the world faces a challenge like never before, a calamity that has affected human life and is also impacting businesses of all sizes. As Amazon India works with the seller partners to stock and deliver key products that customers need during the lockdown period, we are also cognizant of the impact of restrictions on our seller partners amidst Covid-19. A significant number of Amazon India’s 600,000 sellers include micro entrepreneurs, small and medium businesses as well as women sellers, artisans and weavers and many more, Amazon India is taking several steps to support and stand by its seller partners in this tough situation and help them navigate through this challenge,” said Gopal Pillai, Vice-President, Seller Services, at Amazon India.
Priority wish list
The e-tailer has introduced a Priority Wish List programme to encourage and reward seller partners for bringing in more high-priority products, including food, groceries, medicines and healthcare items into its Fulfilment Centres so that people and communities can benefit. “We are providing special incentives to sellers for every unit of priority products they bring into our FCs till May 2020” said Pillai. For items with average selling price (ASP) up to ₹250, sellers are rewarded with ₹23 per item; for items with ASP between ₹250 and ₹500, sellers are rewarded with ₹15 per item; for masks and sanitisers it is ₹35 per item.
Amazon is refunding referral and fulfilment fees to its seller partners for cancelling all customer orders containing lower priority, non-essential items. And is also taking steps to mitigate any negative impact on sellers’ performance metrics in the current situation by relaxing its policies around order cancellation and returns.
“We are temporarily relaxing claim windows for different types of reimbursements that sellers file for. This has been done to ensure that sellers’ reimbursement claims are not denied if they miss the regular claim windows due to the disruption caused by Covid-19. This is valid till end May” said Pillai.
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