SUMMARY
Thousands of sellers started receiving orders again on Amazon
Amazon has urged the government to expand the list of essential items for red zones
Snapdeal resumed the delivery of non-essential products in orange and green zones
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On day 41 of the lockdown, Amazon said that thousands of sellers have started receiving orders for the first time since the lockdown began in India in late March. The US-based ecommerce major is hopeful that the rolling back of restrictions for the delivery of non-essential items will help many small businesses to start earning again.
Going forward, Amazon urged the government to expand the list of essential items for red zones as well. A Financial Express report said that kids apparel and electrical appliances saw the maximum number of orders on Amazon in the areas where deliveries have resumed.
Meanwhile, Snapdeal also resumed the delivery of non-essential products in orange and green zones while continuing deliveries of essential products. As of now, the company is delivering the products which were in transit when the lockdown was announced on March 25, 2020.
Snapdeal said that lakhs of these shipments are near consumer destinations while users have been frequently checking about the orders. Meanwhile, Snapdeal received 75% fresh orders from green and orange zones on the first day (May 4) of the third phase of the lockdown. Most of the orders came from Tier and Tier 3 cities.
Moreover, Flipkart’s senior vice president Anil Goteti said that there has been an increase in the searches of products in categories such as laptops, consumer electronics, headphones, mobiles, air conditioners, coolers, T-shirts, and other essentials.
NITI Aayog Partners With Startups
Led by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, the Indian government’s empowered group 6 has partnered with startups and entrepreneurs from across the world to leverage their innovations and low-cost technologies that may come handy to fight Covid-19.
Besides this, NITI Aayog also elaborated on the initiative taken by the eight startups it has invited to be part of the group. Selected startups are Agva Healthcare, Biodesign Innovation Labs, Kaaenaat, Qure.ai, DronaMaps, Mfine, MicroGO, and Staqu.
Meanwhile, Uber has extended its medical emergency service UberMedic free of charge to two more government hospitals in New Delhi — Lady Hardinge Medical College and Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital. UberMedic service facilitates the transportation of frontline healthcare workers.
Moreover, Admitad global affiliate network has launched a ‘Social Fund’ with a corpus of $300K for the staff whose family members have suffered a job loss recently. The social fund provides compensation of $1,000 each to the parents or spouses of Admitad employees who are left with no income due to the COVID-19 crisis. The compensation will be credited to the salary account of the employees as a one-time bonus payment.
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