Amazon launches Smart Commerce to help offline stores set up digital storefronts

This is similar to what Canada’s Shopify does, wherein it lets small and medium businesses set up online stores and plug into various marketplaces and platforms such as Facebook.

So far, Amazon’s initiatives to digitise offline stores have focused on getting them to list as sellers on its own marketplace.

“With Smart Commerce, stores will be able to digitise their offline operations, provide enhanced in-store shopping experiences to their walk-in customers, and create their own online storefronts within minutes to serve customers directly,” said Amit Agarwal, senior vice-president, India and emerging markets, Amazon.

Agarwal launched the initiative along with Dave Clark, the chief executive of Amazon worldwide consumer, on Wednesday during the third edition of the company’s flagship seller summit, Amazon Smbhav.

The US-based ecommerce behemoth said in a statement that stores of any size can now tap Amazon’s expertise in shopping, logistics, digital payments, and other areas to serve their consumers better, both digitally and in physical stores.

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“We remain committed to our pledge to digitise one crore small businesses in the country by 2025 and are super excited by the possibilities unlocked by Smart Commerce to accelerate progress,” Agarwal, who attended the event virtually from the United States, said.

Going forward, Amazon’s Smart Commerce will release its first set of solutions, including e-billing and inventory management, which will be followed by the launch of other capabilities to help offline stores create their online storefront in minutes, the company added.

“We are humbled that in a short period, the programme (Local Shops) 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, an initiative to transform local stores into
digital dukaans,” Agarwal added.

The e-tailer introduced Local Shops in India two years ago, helping neighbourhood shops go online as sellers on Amazon India.

It also introduced a programme in 2020 called Smart Stores, which provided physical shops with QR codes to accept digital payments through Amazon Pay, and also integrated them with the Amazon India marketplace.

Amazon’s latest initiative comes at a time when large ecommerce companies such as Walmart-owned Flipkart and

Industries’
JioMart are also looking to onboard more offline stores on their platforms and expand their ecommerce footprint.

“Smart Stores are a component of what Smart Commerce will encompass,” said a source aware of Amazon’s thinking. “In a sense, smart stores are what they can do to digitise their physical business. But the bigger piece is they can have their own online channel, besides being on a marketplace like Amazon. And irrespective whether they are on Amazon India or not, we will help them set it up and offer services like logistics.”