Ecommerce giant Amazon on Thursday said that it is on track to surpass $13 billion in cumulative exports from India by the end of 2024, which is an increase of 62.5 per cent from the $8 billion it did last year.
This puts the company in a comfortable position to achieve its target of crossing $20 billion in exports from India to the rest of the world by 2025.
“We’re confident that we’ll cross $13 billion by the end of this year, and I think we are well on our trajectory to achieve a $20 billion target of cumulative exports from India by 2025,” Bhupen Wakankar, director of global trade, Amazon India, told Business Standard.
Amazon’s rival Walmart has recently announced an ambitious annual export target of $10 billion from India by 2027.
Wakankar said, “It’s a great thing when more people join, benefiting the ecosystem. Amazon’s stance is clear: we are not competition-obsessed, but customer-obsessed—specifically, focused on the seller. Our goal is to provide the seller with the best tools and technologies available. As the market expands, it’s a positive development for the Indian ecosystem.”
Amazon unveiled its annual ‘exports digest report, 2024’, according to which over the past year, the total seller base on the platform under its global skilling programme grew by around 20 per cent.
Amazon’s global selling programme launched in 2015 and, over the last nine years cumulatively, it has got 150,000 exporters from more than 200 Indian cities to be a part of its global selling programme.
These sellers sold over 40 crore ‘Made in India’ products to customers across the world, said Amazon.
Wakankar also highlighted that Amazon’s streamlined processes for sellers in terms of market access, market intelligence, and cross-border logistics were enhancing their ease of doing business.
“Products are now available in 200 countries, a feat that would have been challenging just 5 or 10 years ago. Previously, expanding into markets like France meant physically visiting, meeting retailers, and navigating each country individually. Today, sellers can list once and sell globally, exemplifying improved market access,” Wakankar said.
He further said that advanced market intelligence tools and simplified payments were helping the exporters in a big way.
“Market intelligence tools now provide detailed insights into how customers are responding to both your products and competitors. Also, with Amazon Send, cross-border logistics and payments are simplified—customers can pay in any currency, while sellers receive funds in their local currency directly to their bank accounts. This offers significant advantages to sellers operating internationally,” he explained.
Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Karnataka emerged as states with the maximum number of exporters on the Amazon Global Selling programme, according to the report.
Further, in 2024, categories like beauty and apparel saw the highest yearly growth at a rate of more than 40 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively.
“Apparel is a challenging category due to the large number of SKUs and variations in sizes. However, as people become more familiar with the trends, they are increasingly developing offerings in this space, which is what we’re observing,” said Wakankar.
He added that AI was impacting everything in a big way. “Everything that it takes in e-commerce operations, listing automation, keyword automation, photography and video automation—all of these things are getting impacted in a big way,” he added.
First Published: Sep 05 2024 | 7:32 PM IST