Amazon is strengthening its B2B eCommerce operations in India, but the digital shopping giant has yet to make its services available throughout the entire country. On Friday (June 12), Amazon announced that it would be expanding its Amazon Wholesale India business to new countries following the success of its pilot operations in Bengaluru.
According to reports, Amazon will be targeting small- and medium-sized enterprises as well as banks, hotels, hospitals and private firms. According to Amazon Wholesale India head Kaveesh Chawla, the unit already works with more than 100 local manufacturers to facilitate online procurement of more than 10,000 products for SMEs. It currently gears services towards the food and beverage, office, and personal supplies sectors, among others.
“We want to launch our pilot project in Tier II cities before we go pan-India,” Chawla recently told the Business Standard, adding that the expansion will include Mangaluru, Belagavi, Hubballi and Dharwad. Bengaluru will continue to be the hub of Amazon’s B2B eCommerce operations. Payment options will include credit, debit and cash-on-delivery, reports said.
“There are 46 million SMEs in India we want to reach out to,” the executive said. “Eventually, we will expand pan-India. But there is no timeline for that. We are focused on transforming the way Indian SMEs buy and sell their projects. We are going to a allow a whole lot of SMEs to sell their products in different parts of the country through our B2B online marketplace.”
Reports said Amazon already works with major suppliers including 3M India, which announced only days ago that it would be working with the eCommerce conglomerate.
Amazon first launched its pilot B2B wholesale operations in April, when the company revealed that it would be looking to address current challenges in the B2B eCommerce sector in India, including inconsistent inventory and long vendor lead times.
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