In a bid to reward top performing sellers on its platform, Amazon has put in place incentive schemes including a trip to Seattle.
Three sellers will get a chance to visit Seattle, the city where it all began. They would also get a chance to meet the top leadership, including probably Jeff Bezos, who is also considered to be the father of e-commerce and founder of the world’s largest online company Amazon.com and visit the fulfilment centres. Besides, about 15 sellers will also get an opportunity to visit the Amazon’s India headquarters in Bangalore and also would be rewarded with iPhone 6 Gold, LED TVs, iPad Airs and cash backs upto Rs 25,000.
However, in order avail the opportunity, these sellers would have to fulfil some targets during the ecommerce major’s upcoming Diwali sale that goes live from 26{+t}{+h} to 28{+t}{+h} of this month. For example, the sellers should fulfil the first 100 orders without any delay, customer complaint or returns. They should also stock their units sufficiently in a bid to cater to the spike in demand during the sale period.
For Amazon, this festival season is not just about doling out lucrative offers for customers but also rewarding and incentivising the sellers present on its platform. It is also a strategy to retain the sellers in an industry that is gunning to rope in maximum number of sellers.
While Amazon has about one lakh sellers on its platform, rivals such as Snapdeal has 2 lakh sellers and Flipkart, which transformed into a marketplace from a pure play etailer last year, plans to have 1 lakh seller base by end this year. It has close to about 40,000 sellers at present.
Gopal Pillai, Director - Seller Services, Amazon India told Business Line that, “Sellers are an important part of the ecosystem and the objective of this initiative is to recognize sellers who have contribution to keeping the bar of customer experience high by listing quality and relevant selection, maintaining the in-stock inventory levels, by fulfilling orders on times, etc. In addition to the revenue growth through increased sales, sellers get an opportunity to earn rewards under an array of promotions.”
Pillai, who took over from Amit Deshpande 10 weeks ago, also mentioned that these initiatives also help the sellers to boost their productivity. “They also want to learn and grow their business. This festive season most of the sellers have done 8x kind of business. With new initiatives we expect that that they will do more than 10x during Diwali,” he said adding that “Great Indian Diwali Sale” would offer customers 72 hours Deal Marathon - with new deals every 30 minutes - to choose from, across hundreds of categories and crores of products. This means the sellers have to be ready and prepared with their stock.
In a bid to ensure that there is enough products and delivery in done in time, Amazon.in has enhanced its technology and expanded its warehouses. On technology front, the company has created an app especially for the sellers where they notify them every time their stock is replenishing or there is a fresh order. Besides, it is also conducting webinars for the sellers in four different languages at present to teach them how to sell online as about 50 per cent of the sellers come from smaller towns of India who have little or no knowledge about technology.
Amazon is also ensuring speedy delivery for which they have recognized a few sellers who already have small warehouses and has converted it into mini fulfilment centres or Seller Flex as it is termed. There are 11 such centres across 6 cities and the idea is to have 5 more this year.
Pillai said the company would continue to invest in initiatives to woo the 50 million small and medium businesses present in the Indian market. Even as the ecommerce market is growing, the fight at present is to garner the maximum number of sellers as the commissions from the sellers accounts for their revenues. According to a Morgan Stanley report, the sector is expected to grow to $102 billion by 2020.