Amazon Launches Smart Commerce To Digitize Offline Stores Smart Commerce will release its first set of solutions to help local stores digitize billing and inventory management in the coming weeks
By Teena Jose
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Amazon India, an e-commerce platform, has announced the launch of Smart Commerce initiative in India to transform the local stores into "Digital Dukaans' to accelerate its footprints in the retail ecosystem.
"Excited to announce the launch of Smart Commerce. Local stores will now be able to leverage the best of Amazon to serve customers anywhere," tweeted Amit Agarwal, senior vice-president, Amazon.
The announcement of the launch was made during the third edition of Amazon Smbhav Summit 2022. It is aimed at the e-commerce company's plans to digitize 1 crore small businesses by 2025. According to the company's statement, Amazon aims to enable local stores digitize their store operations, provide an enhanced in-store experience to customers and create their own online storefronts.
"In the coming weeks, Smart Commerce will release its first set of solutions to help local stores digitize billing and inventory management. This will be followed by the launch of capabilities enabling them to create their own online storefront within minutes and serve their customers through a simple voice and chat-based shopping experience," claimed the company.
In January 2020, Amazon pledged to digitize 10 million MSMEs, generate $10 billion in cumulative exports from India and create two million jobs in India by 2025.
"We are humbled to share that we have already digitized over four million small businesses and local stores, are on track to enable $5 billion in cumulative exports and have created over 1.16 million direct and indirect jobs in India including 1,35,000 new jobs added in the last one year," said Manish Tiwary, country manager, Amazon India, in a statement.
As per reports, Amazon India introduced a program in 2020 called Smart Stores, which provided offline shops with QR codes to accept digital payments, through Amazon Pay.
India, reportedly, is a home to the fourth largest retail market in the world, estimated at $810 billion. Also, the ecommerce market in the country is estimated to reach $200 billion by 2026.
