Indian exporters on Amazon are on track to touch $8 billion in cumulative exports by the end of this year, compared to $5 billion last year, on the back of rising global demand of their products during the holiday season.
“We started the Amazon Global Selling programme with about 100 sellers in 2015 and now we have about 125,000 sellers and have stated a goal of $20 billion in cumulative export by 2025,” said Bhupen Wakankar, director, Global Trade, Amazon India, in an interaction with Fe.
Holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year drive sales of Indian exporters in markets such as US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Germany. Indian exports have launched over 50,000 products in the lead up to the sale between November 17-27 this year, the company said.
“The US is the largest market for Indian sellers, largely because Amazon is an American company and a large part of its revenue is also from the US,” Wakankar noted.
Products in categories such as home and kitchen, furniture, apparels, toys, beauty and personal care, books, groceries, luggage, leather goods, and home improvement are among the highest exported products so far this year.
During the recent Prime Day sale on October 10-11, Indian exporters clocked in sales growth of nearly 70% year-on-year and 170% when compared to non-festive periods, company data showed.
“Both Japan and Australia emerged as new high growth destinations for Indian exporters with sellers witnessing nearly 200% YoY growth during the two days of the sale,” the company said, adding that the top selling products during this sale were bedsheets, scrub apparel sets, oral care products, rugs and kitchen products.
To attract more Indian exporters to the platform for the holiday season, Amazon has slashed the subscription fees for its global selling programme from $120 to $1 for the first three months for exporters signing up before March 31.
However, logistics cost still remains a pain point for Indian exporters as cross-border shipping charges are a big chunk of the cost for mid-to-small sized businesses.
To streamline negotiations with cross-border freight carriers, Amazon had launched a logistics programme last year that offered air carrier services for small parcels and now plans to expand that service to include ocean freight as well.
“It gives you the same service but also available on a slower and far more price competitive cost than an air freight would,” Wakankar added.
