Amazon to open 'seller cafes' ahead of festive season

Amazon India is opening 'seller cafes' across 24 cities and towns in the country to offer on-ground help to merchants on its platform ahead of the festival season.

"We are opening 24 'seller cafes' in cities and towns to offer on-ground support to sellers to help them getting ready for the festive season," Gopal Pillai, Director and GM, Seller Services, Amazon India told PTI.

"Sellers can use this to set up a new account for imaging or cataloguing help, or any other issues that they face," he added.

The etailer has added 20,000 new sellers in the last six weeks through its new seller initiatives, he said.

"This is a good sign for small and medium businesses, enabling more to join our seller platforms," Pillai added.

Amazon has expanded its delivery network by 5 times and tied-up with over 12,500 stores in more than 50 cities with a majority of them in tier II and III towns.

Pillai indicated the 'seller cafe' programme is a pilot ahead of the festive season and they could continue the initiative based on demand going forward. For this, Amazon has repurposed some of its sellers sales offices to set up the cafes, he said.

The seller cafes are part of a slew of initiatives the marketplace has introduced to improve the sellers' experience like Amazon Tatkal, which was a mobile programme to help sign up small businesses on their platform.

Amazon has been very aggressive in India in recent months. The US-based company had sometimes back announced that it will be investing an additional $3 billion in India, making the total investment in the country to $5 billion dollars in three years.

According to a recent report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, India will account for over a fifth of the Amazon's total international sales by 2025, hitting $81 billion (roughly Rs. 5,42,496 crores) in gross merchandise value (GMV) and $2.2 billion (roughly Rs. 14,735 crores) in operating profits.

The Indian market will be Amazon's largest after the US, the report said.