By Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Amazon is concentrating on merchandise exports price $20 billion from India by 2025 by including hundreds of small sellers to its e-commerce platform, an organization official mentioned on Friday.

“We are very encouraged by the number of entrepreneurs who signed up this year. We are looking to scale up,” Bhupen Wakankar, director international commerce, Amazon informed Reuters on the sidelines of an trade occasion, referring to plans for exports.

There was big demand for “Made in India” natural well being dietary supplements, homeware like bathtub towels, jute rugs, and robotic video games for kids forward of the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale, an 11-day purchasing interval from Friday, Wakankar mentioned.

Launched in 2015 with a handful of sellers, Amazon Global Trade, the enterprise to customers (B2C) exports platform of the e-commerce large, is gaining traction in India.

The firm has added greater than 100,000 small producers to promote a variety of merchandise to abroad clients, he mentioned.

“Some of the sellers are first time exporters, including those who left their corporate jobs to start e-commerce exports,” he mentioned.

Thousands of small exporters, who earlier lacked entry to international markets, have seen 70% enterprise progress yearly by way of e-commerce platform, which offered logistics help and entry to greater than 200 million Amazon Prime members globally, he mentioned.

This comes as India’s exports of products declined 7% year-on-year throughout first seven months of this fiscal 12 months.

On the e-commerce platform, the best progress was seen in classes like magnificence, apparels, residence, kitchen, furnishings, and toys.

Holidays similar to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year have been driving gross sales of Indian merchandise in markets such because the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and Germany.

To encourage exporters, Wakankar mentioned, Amazon had slashed the subscription charges for its international promoting programme from $120 to $1 for the primary three months for exporters signing up earlier than March 31.

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; enhancing by Robert Birsel)