Amazon India’s Seller Base Increased Nearly 160% in 2016

Amazon today announced the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service delivered more than 2 billion items for Sellers worldwide in 2016. The Amazon Marketplace creates opportunities for sellers, brand owners and entrepreneurs to reach customers around the world. FBA items shipped worldwide grew more than 50% during the holiday season, while Prime members ordered millions of items from Sellers in the Seller Fulfiled Prime program offering free two-day or next-day shipping.

“2016 was a record-breaking year in sales worldwide for sellers on Amazon. The Amazon Marketplace empowers brand owners and retailers of all sizes, many of them small businesses, to reach customers around the world,” said Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace. “In fact, according to our economic studies, sellers have created over 600,000 new jobs outside of Amazon. Sellers are choosing Amazon because we help them build and grow their businesses with impactful programs like Seller Fulfiled Prime, and we’re proud of the fact that sellers are reinvesting their success into their local communities by creating jobs.”

2016 Selling on Amazon Milestones:

WW Marketplace and FBA

• FBA delivered more than 2 billion items to customers worldwide
• Active sellers worldwide using the FBA service grew more than 70%
• Outside the U.S., FBA units shipped grew more than 80%
• Using the FBA service, Amazon sellers from more than 130 different countries around the world fulfiled orders to customers in 185 countries
• The Seller Fulfiled Prime program includes more than 6 million new items Prime eligible across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan
• Sellers on Amazon that reached $100K sales grew by 30%
• Sellers worldwide have created more than 600,000 new jobs outside of Amazon
• The seller base on Amazon.in grew nearly 160% in 2016 compared to the year before
• Sellers from India received orders from customers residing in some remote parts of the country such as Fazilka in Punjab, Gariyaband in Chhatisgarh, Kiphire and Longleng in Nagaland, Kurung Kumey and Upper Subansri in Arunachal Pradesh and Lahaul & Spiti in Himachal Pradesh to countries like US, UK, Canada, Mexico, etc.

Holiday Season

• Sellers worldwide received orders for more than 28 million items on Cyber Monday
• FBA items shipped worldwide grew more than 50% year-over-year during the holiday season
• Prime members worldwide ordered millions of items from Sellers in the Seller Fulfiled Prime program offering free two-day or next-day shipping

Sponsored Products

• Sponsored Products clicks worldwide grew by more than 150% driven by expansion of advertising placements on desktop and mobile sites
• The number of sellers worldwide using Sponsored Products grew more than 100%
• Sponsored Products introduced a new and convenient payment method, Unified Billing, which allows Sellers to deduct their advertising spend from sales proceeds

Business Highlights

• Amazon Mexico (www.amazon.com.mx) continued its expansion by enabling more than 20,000 domestic and international sellers to add more than 50 million product offers available to Mexican customers.
• Sellers on Amazon Canada (www.amazon.ca) achieved a record-setting $1 billion in sales.
• Amazon introduced the Pan-European FBA program allowing sellers to build their international business by selling across all Amazon European marketplaces while shipping inventory to just one destination 

India Highlights

• In line with its vision to transform the way India buys and sells, through its innovations, technology support and seller-centric services, Amazon.in till date has attracted over 140,000 sellers across India to the marketplace.  The marketplace has witnessed a 160% y-o-y seller base growth rate in the country.
• With over 50% of the seller base residing in tier II & III towns across India, 90% of the sellers on the platform use Amazon.in’s logistics and fulfilment services.
• Amazon’s Global Selling program also witnessed tremendous success in 2016 by empowering over 18,000 Indian sellers to offer over 25 million ‘Made in India’ products to hundreds of millions of Amazon’s worldwide customers.
• Amazon India helped several renowned homegrown brands such as Amul, Liberty, Biba, Fab India & Manyavar, Himalaya, 24 Organic Mantra, Fit & Glow, etc. to take their ‘Make in India’ products international and debut on Amazon.com
• During Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales Indian sellers witnessed over 50% growth in GMS as compared to the year before
• Global customers shopped for Indian made products like tapestries, bed linen, kitchen products and wooden handicrafts, leather jackets, ethnic wear, shoes & bags, health and wellness products, spices, etc.
• 50% of sellers who participated in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales hailed from Tier 2 cities in India such as Jaipur, Udaipur, Agra, Surat, Karur, Indore, Roorkee, Sanganer etc.
• Indian sellers witnessed over 3X growth in sales during the Thanksgiving week over the same period last year
• Over 250 sellers joined the Crorepati club in October post the Great Indian Festival and over 15,000 sellers witnessed their biggest sale days during Diwali
• Amazon Tatkal, a specially designed studio-on wheels to help SMBs get online and sell on Amazon.in within 60 minutes, launched in February 2016, travelled close to 50,000 kilometers covering over 120 cities across India and on-boarded thousands of sellers
• The total selection on Amazon.in in 2016 across categories was over 95 million with an increase of close to 150% from the year before
• According to the Nielson Brand Health Study, Amazon continues to be the highest top of mind recall and have the highest awareness among online sellers

“The year 2016 was a monumental year for Amazon India. We are extremely excited, proud and humbled by the progress Amazon.in has made over the last year. Particularly so because we have been instrumental in transforming the lives of thousands of SMEs who sell on our platform. Expansion of our seller services offerings and focus on seller enablement & seller capability building initiatives to enable more and more sellers to benefit from the digital economy and succeed online, was our core focus in 2016. We will continue to strive to make selling on Amazon synonymous to selling in India” said Mr. Gopal Pillai, Director & GM, Seller Services Amazon India.