Amazon's Tatkal A Boon For Startups? Amazon announces the launch of its new initiative 'Amazon Tatkal'.
By Ritu Kochar
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An extension of the Amazon "ChaiCart' initiative launched last year to increase awareness about the benefits of selling online, this e-Commerce organization announced the launch of Amazon "Tatkal' on 17th February. This B2B initiative will enable up-and-coming startups to sell their products online.
A brilliant way to woo vendors and buyers, Amazon will give these sellers an experience like launching an online business. Traversing across the country, Amazon will be engaging with thousands of entrepreneurs, artisans, manufacturers and sellers and help them sell online on the spot
Designed as studio-on-wheels, this initiative will visit seller-dense pockets across multiple cities in the country. Through Amazon Tatkal, a vendor will be able to sell his product within an hour after his registration and use other services like imaging, cataloging services and learn some basic seller techniques.
"Amazon Tatkal is a vehicle which will help register sellers with us in 60 minutes. Any seller can walk in get their products photographed and cataloged. It is a specially designed studio-on-wheels offering a suite of launch services, as well as basic seller training mechanisms. For now we will not charge anything to the sellers for the service," said Amazon India Director and GM (Seller Services) Gopal Pillai said.
At present Amazon has around 65,000 Indian on its platform, globally it has around two million active sellers. As the race to increase sales volumes grows, this initiative, designed just for India, has received an overwhelming response and will soon be launched internationally in countries like Turkey. Amazon Tatkal first piloted in Jalandhar and Ambala and the company plans to take it forward to cities such as New Delhi and Kozikode.
Gopal Pillai added, "We are very excited to see the high level of interest and enthusiasm from sellers to get online and benefit from the digital economy. Amazon witnessed a growth of 250 per cent (YoY) last year."
The motive of this initiative is to remove the barrier a seller faces when selling products online, like infrastructure, lack of knowledge, cataloging and so on. With this initiative, not only can they increase the sales of their products but a platform as big as Amazon will definitely encourage vendors to focus on the quality of the product.