Amazon Debuts ‘Great Indian Festival’ Highlighting SMBs

Amazon will debut its Great Indian Festival event, intended to boost businesses from the region during the country’s festival season, starting Oct. 17, a press release says.

The release promises lakhs (or hundreds of thousands) of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in categories including Local Shops, Amazon Launchpad, Amazon Saheli, and Amazon Karigar, according to Amazon.

Manish Tiwary, vice president of Amazon India, said the Great Indian Festival will be “an opportunity for our sellers and partners to reach millions of customers across the country.”

“Our sellers are excited and expect this to help them in accelerating their business,” Tiwary said, according to the release. “For our customers, our aim is to help them find everything they need during the festive season and deliver it safely to them.”

Sellers on Amazon.In are “enthusiastic,” the release says, with over 85 percent of sellers expecting to reach out to new customers and see more sales. More than 74 percent of sellers were optimistic about business recovery, while 78 percent were optimistic about more viability in products.

There will be new product launches from dozens of companies, deals and specials for numerous categories like work-from-home accessories like laptops, tablets, smartphones, furniture and more, alongside appliances like TVs, washing machines and fashion apparel.

Business buyers will be able to access bulk discounts, more deals, exclusive price offers and more, Amazon writes, including from categories like “laptops, printers, networking devices, disinfecting devices, deep freezes, office electronics, vacuum cleaners, mixer grinders,” the release says.

Amazon recently spent $152 million building up its India site, with the funding coming from Amazon Corporate Holdings Pvt. Ltd. of Singapore and Amazon.com Inc. of Mauritius, according to reports. The funding was intended to help compete with rivals in the area, including Flipkart, which is owned by Walmart, and the Mukesh Ambani-helmed Reliance Industries’ JioMart.

Amazon India also recently introduced a new way to allow credit card users to pay bills through Amazon Pay.