GUWAHATI: Amazon in collaboration with FICCI-CMSME (Confederation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) and FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO) conducted a workshop on global selling for local entrepreneurs in the city on Thursday.
Attended by Chief Minister of Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal, the workshop focused on Amazon’s Global Selling Program that enables easy, simple and convenient access for all Indian sellers to expand their business globally. The workshop was aimed at creating awareness, amongst entrepreneurs, SMEs, manufacturers and artisans from the state, about the immense potential for growth offered by the global selling program. Today, over 120 million made-in-India products are being offered to Amazon’s worldwide customer base by over 37,000 exporters from all over India through Amazon global.
The workshop conducted in partnership with FICCI Ladies Organizationlaid gave special emphasis on introducing women entrepreneurs across the state to the numerous benefits of e-commerce and especially export opportunities through Amazon.
Talking about this initiative, Chief Minister of Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal said, “E-commerce has witnessed a remarkable boom in the last couple of years and has emerged as a great platform for exporters to get access to global customers in an efficient manner. I am proud to state that Assam is a key growth market for exports of handicrafts and home décor items, food products, health and personal care items and apparel to buyers across the globe. This workshop is aimed at helping exporters in Assam to widen their knowledge horizon and guide them to expand their customer base through e-commerce. We are happy to partner with Amazon to create awareness about the benefits of online selling amongst local manufactures and maximize our efforts towards giving impetus to exports from the region and promote women entrepreneurship.”
Talking about the workshop in Guwahati, Abhijit Kamra, Head – Global Selling, Amazon India, said “We launched our Global Selling Program in India in 2015 with a few hundred sellers with the aim of helping Indian businesses take their ‘Made in India’ products across the globe. Today, we have over 37,000 digital entrepreneurs selling their products to hundreds of millions of active customers across various ethnicities through hour 11 international market places. Our Global Selling program has witnessed huge interest from manufacturers of home décor and handicraft items, books, health and personal care as well as exporters of tea, rice and apparel across the state. The overall selection from Assam grew from 4093 products in 2017 to 41,640 products in 2018 reflecting a growth of over 900% y-o-y. We see huge potential for these small & medium scale enterprises across categories to scale up their exports business through global selling and will continue to support them through their online journey.”
Speaking for FICCI FLO North-East, Chairperson, Sarita Sikaria, said, “The workshop was in line with FLO objectives of promoting entrepreneurship and giving a hand to existing entrepreneurs to scale up their business. FLO has joined hands with FICCI CMSME, Department of Industries, Govt. of Assam, and Amazon Global Selling to organize this training for the benefit of the sellers of the region.”