The ‘coming soon’ sale would offer a 10 per cent instant discount to HDFC Bank debit/credit cards and EMI customers, a no-cost EMI on Bajaj Finserve debit and credit card, and extra Rs 300 cashback on fashion and beauty purchases. (Image- Reuters)

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: In the run-up to the festive season, Amazon is strengthening its focus towards onboarding more MSME sellers. The company has now expanded its seller registration and account management services to three more languages – Malayalam, Telugu, and Bengali from the existing six including Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and English. Amazon said the launch will benefit “thousands of existing Amazon sellers, many potential and new sellers from markets across tiers to run their business on Amazon.in marketplace in a language of their choice and preference.” Sellers would be able to register, manage orders and inventory, access performance metrics in the language of their preference.

“As we work towards our commitment to digitize 1 crore MSMEs across India by 2025, it is important to address our sellers’ challenges when they seek to leverage e-commerce to expand their businesses. Language is a prominent barrier that Indian MSMEs face and our focus on localisation, demonstrated in part through the launch of account management services in Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam will make it easier for many MSMEs to conduct business online,” said Sumit Sahay, Director, Seller Partner Services, Amazon India in a statement.

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Since Amazon launched regional language support for sellers in 2020, more than 1 lakh new sellers have signed up on the platform, Sahay added. The languages can be changed on both Amazon’s seller website and seller mobile app. To boost its last-mile network, the company had last month announced the launch of a new version of its Delivery Service Partner (DSP) programme in India that allows aspiring entrepreneurs to set up and launch their own package delivery business. DSPs are essentially local companies that Amazon partners with to deliver packages from a central location to the customer’s doorstep.

Amazon also teased the 2021 Great Indian Festival sale online with offers. The ‘coming soon’ sale would offer a 10 per cent instant discount to HDFC Bank debit/credit cards and EMI customers, a no-cost EMI on Bajaj Finserve debit and credit card, and extra Rs 300 cashback on fashion and beauty purchases. The sale would start early for Prime members, much like last year. Flipkart had also recently teased its ‘coming soon’ Big Billion Days sale. The company is looking to ramp up its seller count to 4.2 lakh by end of this year, adding 1.2 lakh sellers during the upcoming festive season. Flipkart Wholesale had also partnered with SME lending platform Davinta to offer a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) credit facility to MSMEs and kiranas.