Amazon Commits $250 Million for India's Small Businesses as Traders Question Practices

Amazon also announced plans to bring 1 million shops onto its platform by 2025 under a "local shops" initiative.

Amazon Commits $250 Million for India's Small Businesses as Traders Question Practices

The new fund will focus on the digitisation of small and medium businesses among other things

Highlights
  • Amazon announced plans to bring 1 million shops onto its platform by 2025
  • 600,000 Indian sellers held a rival summit of their own titled "Asmbhav"
  • Amazon is facing scrutiny from Competition Commission of India
Advertisement

Amazon commits $250 million (roughly Rs. 1,860 crores) for India's small businesses as traders question practices

Amazon on Thursday announced a $250 million (roughly Rs. 1,860 crores) venture fund for India, focused on bringing the country's small businesses online, as the company comes under fire from local retailers.

The new fund will focus on the digitisation of small and medium businesses, innovation in agri-tech and health tech, the company said.

"We are very passionate about trying to enable acceleration of small and medium-sized businesses, in fuelling innovation and the economy in India," the company's incoming CEO Andy Jassy said at Amazon India's event "Smbhav", which phonetically means "possible" in Hindi.

Jassy, who overseas Amazon's fast-growing cloud computing business, will take over as CEO from founder Jeff Bezos later this year.

Amazon also announced plans to bring 1 million shops onto its platform by 2025 under a "local shops" initiative that is aimed at bringing the stores online, and competes with the likes of India's Reliance which also plans to use such retailers for online deliveries.

Many Indian retailers, which are a crucial part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's support base, have long alleged that e-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart flout federal regulations and that their business practices hurt small traders. The companies deny the allegations.

A Reuters special report published in February revealed the U.S. firm has for years given preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its Indian platform, publicly misrepresented its ties with the sellers and used them to bypass the country's strict foreign investment rules. Amazon says it complies with all laws and "does not give preferential treatment" to sellers.

As Amazon's Smbhav "possible" event started, a group representing 600,000 Indian sellers held a rival summit of their own titled "Asmbhav", or "impossible", to protest against foreign e-commerce companies.

The traders' event featured video clips of several shopkeepers blaming companies such as Amazon and Filpkart for their struggles.

"Earlier every festival brought with it rapture and enthusiasm, now every festival brings despair," a smartphone seller from western India said at the event as he blamed foreign e-commerce firms for poor business levels.

Amazon is currently also facing regulatory scrutiny in India from the Competition Commission of India and the federal crime-fighting agency for possible law violations.


Are AmazonBasics TVs Good Enough to Beat Mi TVs in India? We discussed this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.
Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Asus ZenFone 8 Mini Specifications Tipped by Alleged Geekbench Listing, May Be Powered by Snapdragon 888
Share on Facebook Gadgets360 Twitter Share Tweet Snapchat Share Reddit Comment google-newsGoogle News
 
 

Advertisement

Follow Us

Advertisement

© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Trending Products »
Latest Tech News »