Amazon to launch 45 physical kiosks soon; banking on offline sellers this festive season?

Last month IOS reported that Paytm Mall announced it will be hosting is first festive season sale online and offline, since its emergence as a separate online retail entity. Amazon also took the offline route by promoting the purchase of mobiles on its platform through physical kiosks. Amazon Fashion also tied up with major offline chains like Cafe Coffee Day to promote its ‘Wardrobe Refresh Sale’. It developed the fashion kiosks or experience centres concept in10 corporate parks from 3 cities

Now, just like its competitor Paytm, which is eying sellers offline, the US-based ecommerce company will also be concentrating these kinds of sellers. Amazon India plans on launching around 45 offline kiosks or Seller Cafes in 20 cities all over the country. These kiosks will mostly be located in tier II and III cities. Through this move the etailer expects to bring in more sellers and assist its existing sellers with their issues.

The seller induction plan

For the past 5 weeks, Amazon Indian has acquired 2,500 online sellers per week. It now has a seller base of 225,000 merchants offering more than 160 million goods on its platform. The ecommerce company is revamping its seller app to appeal to more sellers who use their mobile phones most to do business. But, the kiosks that it will be introducing will have a much greater impact and ensure the rest of its efforts pay off.

Amazon India, seller services director and GM, Gopal Pillai said, “Sellers will be able to walk into these cafés, set up their Amazon seller accounts and receive basic guidance from trained resources for navigating their accounts and getting their queries resolved. If we want more sellers from tier-II and tier-III towns, we need to make an offline push. More than 70 per cent of our sellers from there.”

The marketplace will also be conducting webinars and offline classes through its Seller University programme. These will be hosted across six cities in India.

“We also have some offline sessions planned in September, focusing on new sellers and how they can prepare for the upcoming sale in cities like Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Bangalore and Pune,” Pillai mentioned.

To get more sellers interested in signing up with them, Amazon also partnered with YES Bank and Capital First to offer sellers secured and unsecured loans of Rs.5 lakhs to Rs.2 crore.

All in all it’s a good plan to capture more sellers, but how will a growing seller base impact the sales of existing ones?