By Manoj Kumar
NEW DELHI Amazon is targeting merchandise exports worth $20 billion from India by 2025 by adding thousands of small sellers to its e-commerce platform, a company official said 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 global trade, Amazon told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry event, referring to plans for exports.
There was huge demand for "Made in India" organic health supplements, homeware like bath towels, jute rugs, and robotic games for children ahead of the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale, an 11-day shopping period from Friday, Wakankar said.
Launched in 2015 with a handful of sellers, Amazon Global Trade, the business to consumers (B2C) exports platform of the e-commerce giant, is gaining traction in India.
The company has added more than 100,000 small manufacturers to sell a wide range of products to overseas customers, he said.
"Some of the sellers are first time exporters, including those who left their corporate jobs to start e-commerce exports," he said.
Thousands of small exporters, who earlier lacked access to global markets, have seen 70% business growth annually through e-commerce platform, which provided logistics support and access to more than 200 million Amazon Prime members globally, he said.
This comes as India's exports of goods declined 7% year-on-year during first seven months of this fiscal year.
On the e-commerce platform, the highest growth was seen in categories like beauty, apparels, home, kitchen, furniture, and toys.
Holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year were driving sales of Indian products in markets such as the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and Germany.
To encourage exporters, Wakankar said, Amazon had slashed the subscription fees for its global selling programme from $120 to $1 for the first three months for exporters signing up before March 31.
(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; editing by Robert Birsel)