50,000+ offline retailers and neighbourhood stores now part of Local Shops on Amazon
Offline retailers and neighbourhood stores have embraced technology to become digital entrepreneurs. Today, more than 50,000 offline retailers and neighbourhood stores from 450 cities, from metros and tier 2 and tier 3 cities like Sangli, Osmanabad, Jamnagar, Gorakhpur, Jabalpur, Ratlam, Bikaner, Tumkur, Jalpaiguri, Ernakulum, Kanchipuram, Patna, Rajkot, Agra, Dehradun etc., have joined the Local Shops on Amazon program and offer customers in their cities a wide range of products.
Sandip Shah, owner of Oggo Enterprises, has been selling home and kitchen products to customers from his shop in Mulund, Mumbai, for over three decades. Amidst the challenging times last year, he brought his business online with ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ program and fulfilled over 800 orders on Amazon within three months of joining the program. On his first experience with ecommerce, Shah says, “A customer in an offline store will take half an hour to look at the product and decide if they like it, while I get 2-3 orders online in the same time. We now cater to customers beyond Mulund and across Mumbai using our own delivery set up. We are also leveraging Amazon’s pan-India delivery network and are able to serve customers in other cities.”
Today, Sandeep Shah is one of more than 50,000 offline retailers and neighbourhood stores on the ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ program. Launched in April 2020, the program brings the benefits of ecommerce to offline retailers and neighbourhood stores. It helps supplement the existing footfalls at their stores with a digital presence on Amazon.in and expands their reach beyond the normal catchment. With Local Shops on Amazon, customers can discover products from local shops in their city (many they already trust and love!) from the convenience of their homes while helping local shops transform into digital stores. Local Shops on Amazon has played a key role in helping sellers across India sustain their livelihoods and jumpstart their business amidst the unprecedented pandemic.
Manish Tiwary, VP – Amazon India said, “What started as a pilot, has now become a pan-India phenomenon enabling local businesses to come online and benefit from technology adoption and ecommerce. The encouraging response to the Local Shops on Amazon program reflects in the rapid scale up of the program to 50,000+ sellers in less than one year of launch. It underlines how digital enablement and digital inclusion can help them scale and contribute to a digital economy. We remain committed to work closely with the millions of MSMEs including the vast network of neighbourhood stores across the country as part of our focus on transforming the way India buys and sells.”
