Simplifying online selling with innovation in Fulfilment Channels

Since the launch of Amazon.in about 8 years ago, Amazon.in has been focused on enabling every motivated seller anywhere in India to reach customers across India and every country in the world. As compared to other geographies, India is very unique and is far more regionally fragmented and hence the demands and needs of MSMEs are also very diverse in nature here. While awareness about digital commerce and online selling has improved over the years, there was and continues to be, albeit to a lesser degree, a common misconception that selling online is not for everyone as it needs digital sophistication, know-how and is generally a cumbersome process.

In reality, the effort required to run a business on ecommerce marketplace like Amazon.in is as simple as creating a profile on a social media platform or an email account. We continue to embark on a focused awareness building exercise among SMBs, informing and educating them about the huge potential and prospective business growth through online selling. Amazon has worked a lot in this area including rolling out a number of programs and tools that have helped increase awareness and has helped hundreds of thousands of SMBs to embrace ecommerce.

To sell on Amazon.in, sellers need access to seller central. Seller Central is a hub that is used by sellers to market and sell their products directly to customers on the Amazon.in marketplace. Sellers can handle all of the tasks of shipping, customer service, and returns among many other services. To access Seller Central, the first step for a seller to start an online business by registering on sell.amazon.in. A 15 minutes process - sellers will require two things at the time of registration which include a GST/PAN information of sellers’ selling business and an active bank account to deposit payments. For the convenience of SMBs, Amazon has launched seller registration and account management services in in 8 regional languages in addition to English including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, and Tamil.

The next step is to list the products to make it available to millions of customers on the marketplace. While creating a listing of the product, the seller will have to add all the information such as product details, dimensions, images, features and variations.

In addition to listing products a seller has to choose a fulfilment option to ensure they provide a fast a reliable delivery experience to customers. Here, Amazon.in provides multiple options to sellers to fulfil customer orders. These options include Fulfilment by Amazon, Seller Flex, Easy Ship and Self-Ship.

Sellers need to keep their inventory ready and deliver them to customer as and when they receive an order.

In case of ‘Fulfilment by Amazon’, the storage, packing & delivery, product returns and refunds are managed by Amazon. All sellers need to do is store their inventory in Amazon managed warehouses. Besides, sellers also get a Prime badge for their listing and Amazon will also handle customer support.

For sellers who prefer to use their own premises to stock inventory but want to utilize Amazon technology and logistics services to deliver orders to customers, we offer Seller Flex. Seller Flex makes it convenient for sellers to have all the advantages of FBA services and serve customers faster and more efficiently. Besides Seller Flex, Amazon.in also has Multi Seller Flex, where multiple sellers can utilize a single seller Flex facility. Multi Seller Flex is primarily beneficial to sellers from tier 2 and below towns to earn a Prime badge for their listings. SMB sellers who require support in storing their inventory and processing customer orders can really benefit from this program.

If the sellers choose ‘Easy Ship’, they store their inventory at their own premises. As and when they receive a customer order, seller needs to keep the product ready for dispatch. An Amazon associate will go to the seller’s location, pick the product and then takes it to an Amazon center where the product is packed and shipped to the customer.

Seller Flex and Easy Ship are India First innovations to meet the needs of Indian sellers.

Sellers can also choose ‘Self Ship’. In Self Ship, the seller will store the product at their premises. When the seller receives an order then it is the seller’s responsibility to pack and also get it delivered it to the customer.

For Amazon, it has always been about working backwards from seller needs, launching programs and initiatives to address those needs so as to enable them to sell more and earn more. In order to do so, Amazon continues to innovate, including some unique local initiatives for India.