Every day at Amazon, we get to witness inspiring entrepreneurial stories—stories of innovation, success, hardship, and failure—all integral parts of the journey of building a global brand. I want to share with you one such story, that of an entrepreneur named Maitri Jain, who is taking Indian herbal products to customers worldwide. Her brand, MI Nature—which started out with a team of just 5 people and 10 products in 2017—began selling with Amazon Global Selling in 2020. Today, MI Nature sells over 150 different products on Amazon’s international marketplaces. The brand has grown 5x on Amazon’s U.S., Canada, and UK marketplaces.
What sets this Ahmadabad-based brand apart is not just its growth trajectory but the fact that it is run by a strong team of mostly women. It is helping people lead a holistic and balanced life through its vegan, ethically-produced herbal powders and tablets. In the process, it is also preserving India’s ancient wellness traditions that are rooted in nature.
Lowering entry barriers for exports
Our vision with Amazon Global Selling is to lower the entry barrier to exports for lakhs of small businesses and entrepreneurs and help them build global brands. Since the program was launched in 2015, we have enabled more than 125,000 Indian exporters to sell over 266 million Made in India products across categories like home, health and personal care, toys, beauty, apparel, kitchen, etc., to customers globally. Exporters from over 200 cities across India are now part of this program, including from places like Sri Ganganagar (Rajasthan), Erode (Tamil Nadu), Haridwar (Uttarakhand), and Hooghly (West Bengal), among others.
Identifying promising D2C startups
In the last 12 months since Exports Digest 2022, we have been focused on making exports easier. Last year, we introduced a dedicated cross-border logistics program called SEND that provides exporters access to hassle-free logistics at competitive rates. We also launched an Exports Compliance Dashboard to simplify exports related documentation. The Season 3 of our Propel Accelerator, which identifies promising D2C startups and helps them go global, is currently underway. We will continue to remove major friction points like working capital needs, cross-border payments, logistics, and more. Our programs, tools, and partnerships have helped reduce the average go-to-market time for Amazon Global Selling exporters exporting to the US by 35% over the last two years.
Exports Digest 2023
I am excited to bring to you Exports Digest 2023, which offers a data-backed, insightful overview of the success, scale, and potential of e-commerce exports in India. I am inspired by how the ecosystem is coming together to boost exports — through policy measures, advancements in technology, availability of capital for MSMEs, and more. The Government, through initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Vocal for Local’, is creating an ecosystem that fosters innovation in manufacturing while promoting skill-building and ease of doing business for lakhs of Indian MSMEs. These are all important levers for MSME-led exports growth.
India's new Foreign Trade Policy
Recently, the Government released the new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP), which includes a dedicated chapter on e-commerce exports, estimating it to contribute $200-$300 billion to India’s overall exports by 2030. The FTP, along with the Government’s continued focus on District as Exports Hubs, is likely to have a positive impact on our goal of enabling $20 billion in cumulative e-commerce exports from India by 2025. We are on track to enable $8 billion in cumulative e-commerce exports by end of 2023.
We have many more milestones to come and are excited about what lies ahead, it’s still Day 1!
