Amazon is looking to shore up its seller count in India as its global selling programme picks up. The e-tailer is also in the process of bringing on-board more handicrafts and artisan bodies on board for the export market.

Through the global selling programme, sellers can list their products on 12 marketplaces, including the ‘amazon.com’ site.

The cumulative gross merchandise sales (GMS) — or the net sales — under the programme has been to the tune of $1 billion over the last three years. According to Gopal Pillai, Vice-President, Seller Services, Amazon India, the cumulative GMS is expected to be around $5 billion by 2023. “We are hopeful of a five-fold growth in GMS for those selling globally,” he told BusinessLine . Pillai, however, did not mention the number of sellers that the e-tailer wants to bring on board to increase the seller-base.

As of now, 50,000-plus of the nearly 4,50,000 sellers are on its global selling programme. Some of the products that have started generating export interest include apparels, home décor items, books, and power tools, among others. Indian handicrafts and traditional art have generated substantial interest too.

Indian handicrafts

According to Pillai, Amazon India is also in talks with different artisan groups, State government organisations and cooperative bodies — like Tantuja, the apex body of handloom weavers in West Bengal and the Jharkhand Silk Textile & Handicraft Development Corp — for listing their products for global sales (exports).

At present, 15 government agencies, bodies and handicraft groups are on board through the ‘Kala Haat’ programme of Amazon India. Of these, 2-3 groups, including Tantuja, are selling overseas.

Launched in late 2016, the Kala Haat programme, Amazon claims, has helped to revive dying art and textile traditions like ‘Lippan Kaam’ — the craft of Mudwork made using camel dung, practised by a handful of individuals from the Rabari nomadic tribes of Gujarat — and Ilkal sarees, a 1,200-year-old weaving tradition that originated in Ilkal town in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka.

Market sources say that Amazon is also in talks with Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India for marketing goods produced by the various communities.

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