Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: 62,000 small and medium-sized sellers from Tier-II and Tier-III cities made up a majority share of nearly 70 per cent of more than 91,000 SMEs – highest participation by SME sellers – on Amazon Prime Day ever. The two-day event (August 6-7) also saw the highest e-commerce sales ever for 31,000 SME sellers while more than 4,000 SMEs sold goods worth Rs 10 lakh or more. Moreover, 209 SMEs became ‘crorepatis’ as well during the 48-hour sale event by Amazon, according to details released by Amazon on the performance of SME sellers on Prime Day.
This was the first time that Amazon had held the mega sale event in India before the US which is usually organised in mid-July. The Prime Day in the US will now be held in the fourth quarter this year, Amazon’s chief of finance Brian Olsavsky had said during an earnings call last month. The company had said that the sale would be delayed amid the Corona pandemic.
Back in India, Amazon claimed high growth for artisans and weavers selling under its Amazon Karigar programme for promoting handicrafts as well as for women entrepreneurs from the Saheli programme and startups under its Launchpad programme. While artisans saw 6.7X growth over corresponding normal days, women sellers witnessed a growth of 2.6X over average daily sales. Startups also grew by 2.1X. In addition, Amazon said that more than 1,000 local shops from over 100 cities participated in the Prime Day for the first time and grew by 2X over average daily sales. There were more than 1 million Prime members who shopped from these small businesses in the 14-day lead-up period, which began July 23rd, to the sale event.
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“This Prime Day was dedicated to our small business (SMB) partners, who have been increasingly looking to Amazon to keep their businesses running. We are humbled that we were able to help as this was our biggest Prime Day ever for small businesses,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Manager, Amazon India.
Amazon said that Prime Day members from more than 97 per cent pin codes in India shopped during two days while over twice as many customers joined Prime during the sale vis-à-vis last year. Also, more than 65 per cent new customers were from cities beyond the top 10 cities while personal computing, large appliances, kitchen, smartphones, apparel, and pantry categories saw maximum units sold during the sale.
