Eyeing $20 Bn Exports From India, Amazon Inks MoU With Indian Railways, Indian Post

At the Amazon SMBhav summit on Thursday (August 31), the ecommerce giant joined hands with Indian Railways and Indian Post to facilitate faster product deliveries in India.

Amit Agarwal, SVP, India and Emerging Markets, Amazon, said that the ecommerce giant will open up a dedicated corridor for its seller partners with Indian Post and Railways to expedite shipping across the country. Amazon has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the two agencies, Agarwal said.

“We have been partners with the Indian postal service for a while. This will create the first-of-its-kind, seamless, integrated cross-border logistics solution. Now, the idea of somebody sitting in the corner of the country (India) can ship products to customers in New York just becomes more real,” Agarwal said at the event in New Delhi.

India Post and Amazon also unveiled a commemorative postal stamp at the event.

Agarwal said the company has digitised more than 2 Mn SMEs in India and now aims to facilitate $20 Bn in exports from the country. So far, it has enabled $8 Bn in exports from India.

Manish Tiwary, country manager, India consumer business, Amazon India, said, “As we get closer to delivering on our India Pledges to digitise 10 Mn MSMEs, enable $20 Bn in cumulative exports and create 2 Mn direct and indirect jobs in India, we remain excited about the long-term opportunity in India.”

To be sure, the ecommerce giant had earlier announced its India plans for 2025, as mentioned by Tiwary at the event.

Amazon also launched multi-channel fulfilment, allowing D2C companies and other small businesses to use the Amazon infrastructure and run operations even if they’re not registered with the ecommerce company.

Congratulating the ecommerce giant, Dr Jitendra Singh Minister of State (I/C) said, “For lakhs of small businesses across India, digitisation can offer economic growth, broader customer reach, reduced marketing & distribution expenses, and access to foreign markets.”

Amazon Jumps On The GenAI Bandwagon

Jumping on the generative AI bandwagon, Amazon also announced Sahay, an AI chatbot, to help SMEs grow and scale. Sahay allows prospective businesses to ask questions to help them set up shop with Amazon.

“Whether they want to register, list items, get help, expand sales and be more successful, Sahay will help. I’m very excited to bring the power of generative AI to Indian small and medium businesses starting now and that should be pervasive going forward as well,” Agarwal said.

Amazon expects generative AI to transform its business entirely and said it is difficult to imagine what the company will look like 10 years from now, thanks to AI.

“We think in the next 10 years, there won’t be any aspect of our business that won’t be transformed in some meaningful way by this (generative AI). There won’t be any way that we do our business today that AI won’t transform,” Russell Grandinetti, SVP – International Consumer at Amazon, said at the event.