Amazon today announced that sellers will be able to register on the Amazon.in marketplace and manage their online business in Marathi. The launch of Marathi breaks the language barrier for lakhs of Indian entrepreneurs, MSMEs, local shops and retailers from Maharashtra to benefit from eCommerce. Over 85,000 existing Amazon sellers and lakhs of new sellers from tier – 1 and below markets like Kolhapur, Nashik, Satara, Aurangabad, Solapur, Nagpur, Jalgaon among many cities in Maharashtra will benefit with the launch of seller registrations and account management services in Marathi.
The features include everything needed for a seller to be a part of Amazon community - from registering as an Amazon seller for the first time, to managing orders, inventory management and accessing performance metrics – all in the language of their preference. This experience has been made available on the Amazon seller website as well as on the mobile app. Amazon also provides Seller Support Services and Seller University videos and tutorials in Marathi.
Amazon.in worked with expert linguists to develop an accurate and comprehensible experience to make it more user friendly. The team has chosen commonly used terms over perfectly translated words to make the experience authentic, easily understandable and seamless for sellers. The launch in Marathi is followed by the recently launched seller registrations and account management services in Hindi, Kannada and Tamil, which saw over 50,000 new Amazon sellers sign up on the Amazon.in marketplace in a language of their convenience.
The launch of the vernacular registration and account management experience for sellers in Marathi is a major step in that direction and in line with our pledge to digitize 10 million MSMEs by 2025.
Pranav Bhasin, Director- MSME & Selling Partner Experience, Amazon India said, “Language is a prominent barrier that Indian MSME’s face when they seek to leverage eCommerce to expand their business. As we move to enable more micro, small and medium enterprises to embrace eCommerce, we remain committed to strengthening our vernacular, voice and video powered initiatives. We, at Amazon India, shall continue to eliminate barriers faced by these businesses and facilitate ease of business. The launch of the vernacular registration and account management experience for sellers in Marathi is a major step in that direction and in line with our pledge to digitize 10 million MSMEs by 2025.”
Amazon Sellers who wish to change their preferred language can change it in a few simple steps on both Amazon’s Seller website and Seller mobile app. Sellers registering through the Desktop can change their preferred language by accessing the ‘language drop-down’ available on every page, at the top-right corner. On the Seller App, the language can be changed through the language drop-down on the bottom left corner while registering and through the App ‘Settings’ menu. Once the language is changed, sellers can view all pages and workflows in Marathi. Amazon will continue to evolve the experience to add more features in Marathi, helping thousands of SMBs to enjoy the benefits of registering and managing their business in a language of their choice and convenience.
Amazon India has been innovating to expand the e-commerce opportunity to both customers and businesses in the areas of Vernacular, Voice and Video enabled initiatives for the past few years. In March 2020, Alexa was introduced on the Amazon shopping app for Android devices to help users shop using voice commands. Amazon Alexa, a cloud-based voice service that powers Echo range of smart speakers, also understands proper nouns in various languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu etc. With the launch of Alexa in Hindi, customers can ask questions and interact with Alexa in Hindi or Hinglish, in addition to English. In September 2020, ahead of the Great Indian Festival, Amazon.in launched shopping experience in four new Indian languages – Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
Furthermore, Amazon Prime Video makes titles available in Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi and Bengali in addition to English. Users can browse through Prime Video experience in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu in addition to English. Authors can self-publish their work on Kindle Direct Publishing in five Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati in addition to English. In 2019, Amazon launched an Automated Messaging Assistant in Hindi. Amazon has also added video summaries to help customers get a quick overview of the product and an immersive shopping experience. Customers can also speak to Amazon Customer Service executives in 5 Indian languages including English, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.
It’s still Day 1!
