Amazon makes 160 percent year-on-year growth in 2016

Amazon India says its efforts on making it easier for small merchants to get on-boarded on the marketplace have paid off.

The online marketplace, which has over 1.4 lakh active sellers, is claiming 160 percent year-on-year growth in the number of sellers on the platform for Calendar Year 2016.

Gopal Pillai, Director and General Manager of seller services, Amazon India, said, "We currently have a selection of over 9.5-crore products across categories. We have also built an ecosystem of 1,900 freelance Amazon Trained Ecommerce Specialists in 30 cities and over 300 service providers who help sellers with imagery, cataloging, transportation and legal requirements. Amazon Tatkal scheme, which was launched in February, has covered 120 cities and helps a seller get on the marketplace under 60 minutes."

The number of active sellers on a marketplace keeps changing as smaller sellers tend to drop off due to lack of bandwidth to manage their online business.

Pillai, said, "In order to manage seller lifecycle better, our service provider network helps them get started."

In an interview, Amit Agarwal, managing Director, Amazon India, said that the platform had "85,000 active sellers and 4 lakh sellers who had engaged with the platform".

Earlier this year, online marketplaces, including Amazon and Flipkart, were caught unawares by government regulations allowing 100 percent Foreign Direct Investment in online marketplaces, banning predatory pricing and deep discounts. The regulations also mandated that no single vendor could account for more than 25 percent of the overall sales on the marketplaces.