Amazon India offers 50% waiver on selling fee for new sellers ahead of festive season

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Ahead of its Great Indian Festival sale during this year’s festive season, Amazon India on Monday said it is offering a 50 per cent waiver on selling fee for all new sellers across all categories registering on Amazon.in between August 28 to October 26 and launching within 90 days from the date of registration. The selling fee is one of the fees paid by sellers for selling goods on the Amazon India marketplace and is calculated as a percentage of the total sales price paid by the buyer.

Amazon India said lakhs of sellers across India including local stores, traditional weavers and artisans, women entrepreneurs as well as startups and digital entrepreneurs are looking forward to potential benefits from this festive season. “We have over a million sellers from India who will have the opportunity to showcase their products to customers across the country during the festive season,” said Vivek Somareddy, Director Fulfillment Channels at Amazon India.

Amazon has over 60 fulfillment centers, sortation centers across 19 states in India and over 1,850 Amazon-owned and partner stations. It also has 28,000 ‘I Have Space’ (IHS) partners and thousands of Seller-Flex partners for delivering goods. IHS programme allows local retail stores in a city to partner with Amazon in order to deliver customer products within a 2–4 km radius of their stores. The stores also act as pick-up points for customers in the neighbourhood.

Moreover, “sellers on Amazon.in can leverage fulfillment programs from Amazon like Easy Ship and Seller Flex to further expand their business within their cities and other locations across India. Easy Ship and Seller Flex help sellers with possible cost-effective storage and logistics solutions for entrepreneurs and SMBs who wish to sell on Amazon.in.”

Meanwhile, Amazon is set to face tougher competition ahead in India. According to brokerage firm Bernstein, while profitability remains elusive for Amazon in India despite investing around Rs 50,000 crore so far, the company will also have to compete with companies such as Meesho, BlinkIt and Swiggy, to capture the next phase of growth. A recent research note by Bernstein noted that Amazon India will have to compete with ‘new’ commerce players with a drastic shift from slow e-commerce to quick/instant delivery, and high-margin businesses such as fashion, beauty and personal care, where it has struggled so far. Currently, Walmart-owned Flipkart is Amazon’s arch-rival in India.