Technology for MSMEs: Amazon on Wednesday launched Smart Commerce initiative for local stores to transform into ‘digital dukaans’. With Smart Commerce, stores will be able to create their own online storefronts to digitise their offline shops, Amazon said as its Local Shops on Amazon initiative, which allows shop owners to sell to customers in their local area through Amazon, completed two years in April.
“We are humbled that in a short period, the programme has already grown to more than 1.5 lakh stores across India. Inspired by this momentum, I’m excited to announce the launch of Smart Commerce,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP, India and Emerging Markets, Amazon at the company’s annual virtual summit Amazon Smbhav.
“Stores of any size can now take advantage of the best of Amazon to provide a trustworthy experience to their customers no matter where they are, in their physical store, directly through their own online storefront or amazon.in,” said Agarwal. The initiative is part of Amazon’s commitment to digitise 1 crore small businesses by 2025. Since Amazon’s launch in India in June 2013, the company has already digitised 40 lakh small businesses.
Amazon said its Smart Commerce programme will release the first set of solutions in the coming weeks to help local stores digitize billing and inventory management. This will be followed by the launch of capabilities enabling them to create their own online storefront within minutes, and serve their customers through a simple voice and chat-based shopping experience, the company added.
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On Tuesday, Amazon’s cloud computing business Amazon Web Services (AWS) had also launched an educational programme SMB Vidyalaya to digitally upskill small businesses. The programme would involve webinars covering content across over 50 modules focused on digital literacy and the reach of small businesses using AWS Cloud.
AWS had said the programme would also provide access to different resources available on its India SMBHub and AWS store on Amazon Business Marketplace along with a team of professionals to handhold SMBs in technology enablement. Also, the number of software solutions offered to small businesses by AWS under its Amazon Digital Suite was increased from seven to 27 now including Tally enterprise resource planning (ERP), QuickHeal antivirus, MSwipe payment acceptance merchant app etc.