SURAT: E-commerce major Amazon India started country’s first Digital Kendra in Surat on Thursday looking at the area’s dense micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector presence. It will be a physical resource centre for the companies to avail third party services training on benefits of e-commerce, GST and taxation support, shipping and logistics support, cataloguing assistance among others.
Part of Amazon India’s plan to digitize Indian MSMEs, the centre will provide local partners additional revenue channels while creating awareness and understanding of e-commerce, understanding the export markets and offer MSMEs the support to grow their businesses, the e-comm giant stated
“Surat is a major hub of MSME sector in Gujarat and the centre will cater to the companies in Surat and nearby areas. It will be a one-stop place for MSME to do all sales in India and engage with other Amazon programs,” Amit Agarwal, senior vice-president and country head of Amazon India said.
“Some of our sellers are buying from Amazon but they have not taken the first step to come online. So, we thought that a physical centre would help and through this we will handhold the small and medium businesses with everything,” said Manish Tiwary, vice-president of Amazon India, told TOI.
The company has also seen a rise in the number of sellers on its platform over the last one year. “We have 8.5 lakh sellers in India, but 3 lakh of them have come since January 2020, just before the pandemic so there has been a sharp acceleration in sellers coming online,” Tiwary said, adding that due to the pandemic there has been a rise in both sellers and customers.
