While purchasing groceries or other household things we always prefer our neighbourhood kirana stores or local shops. If we could see the same shops selling online and they start delivering to your doorstep (especially during this lockdown) that would be more existing. Doing exactly that, Amazon India has spearheaded a program called ‘Local Shops on Amazon’, where the e-commerce platform will be working with local shops and start selling their goods online.
As a customer, you could discover and buy a greater selection of products on Amazon India that being listed directly by your familiar neighbourhood local shops. You could also get faster deliveries as the products are coming from your nearby local shops.
Whereas for shop owners, they could expand their business and sell it to more people. Also, they could easily supplement their footfalls with a digital presence. This could add additional revenue to their business. Also, it would become much easier for offline local shops to transform themselves into digital stores.
Amazon India has already started the pilot program by partnering 5000+ shopkeepers over 100 cities across the country. This includes shopkeepers from metros as well as tier-1 and tier-2 cities like Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Delhi NCR and Surat among others. It’s not just local grocery shops or electronic stores being made part go the initiative. Local shops selling home decor, kitchen items, apparel and shoes, gifts, flowers, sports, books and cakes are also being included in the program.
How to join ‘Local Shops on Amazon’
To be part of the Local Shops on Amazon program, as a shopkeeper you need to meet certain conditions.
- You need to have a physical store or retail store kirana shop.
- You need to have a delivery mechanism in place to deliver products the same day or next day (maximum 2 days) to customers doorstep. It can be through your delivery associates or a courier partner.
- Additionally, you could also provide additional services such as demo or installation (if applicable, like for TVs) during delivery. ( this condition is not mandatory).
Once you meet the conditions, you could register and create an account with Amazon India. Then you can upload all products (with details and pricing) available for sale. Choose the area or region (limit with pin codes) were you want to sell. Once you get an order, deliver it within the same day, next day or maximum in 2 days.
There are no charges for joining the initiative, but the standard fee for listing and selling on Amazon marketplace would be applicable.
The new program from Amazon India is likely aimed at grabbing the maximum number of local shops before Reliance and Walmart-owned Flipkart steps in. Reliance Retail division is currently piloting JioMart and it gets a much-needed boost with Facebook investment. Whereas Flipkart is also piloting a similar initiate with over 5000 offline shops across the country.