Amazon Saheli for women entrepreneurs
at Global Entrepreneurship Summit, 2017
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/amazon-saheli-for-women-entrepreneurs/article21041283.ece
New platform to reach customers
Women entrepreneurs from across India have a new platform to reach
out to new customers in the country and abroad to sell their products
with Amazon India launching ‘Amazon Saheli’, a pioneering programme
aimed at empowering and enabling women entrepreneurs.
Besides
offering the registered women entrepreneurs an unparalleled reach to
customers, Amazon Saheli will help them gain logistics and fulfilment
facilities to help their businesses soar, said Amazon India Director
& GM (Seller Services) Gopal Pillai. He said women the entrepreneurs
would be able to enjoy several benefits like referral fees, free
imaging, cataloguing during launch, account management, post-launch
support and differentiation of products through specialised store
fronts.
Amazon was partnering with organisations like
Self-Employed Women Association (SEWA) and Impulse Social Enterprise and
would expand the services to such players, Amazon’s India director
added.
Mr. Pillai said Amazon Saheli would also conduct extensive
training and skill development workshops free of cost to help women
entrepreneurs understand nuances related to online selling and develop
skills & capabilities necessary to grow their business. The training
workshops to be free of cost would comprise of sessions on listing of
products, packaging, shipping, account management and customer service.
Reema
Nanavati, who leads SEWA, said the Saheli programme builds economic
security, brings dignity and self-respect among young women
entrepreneurs in the country.
Amazon launches special store for women entrepreneurs
Amazon
Saheli is aimed at empowering and enabling women entrepreneurs to sell
their products on a dedicated storefront on Amazon.in called The Saheli
Shop
Mumbai: Amazon India has launched a series of workshops to
familiarise women entrepreneurs across the country with the benefits of
e-commerce, give training and have some of them sell their products on a
dedicated storefront on Amazon.in called The Saheli Shop.
Amazon
timed the announcement with the opening of the Global Entrepreneurship
Summit in Hyderabad on Tuesday, which has women entrepreneurship as its
central theme.
This initiative, called Amazon Saheli, is being
rolled out in partnership with non-government social service entities
Self-Employed Women Association (SEWA) and Impulse Social Enterprise.
The
e-commerce firm will look to tap women associated with the two NGOs and
woo potential women sellers through benefits like subsidized product
cataloging, imaging, packaging and courier services, besides basic
online training.
“We at SEWA believe in young women’s’
entrepreneurship using e-commerce. With minimal cost, e-commerce gives
you reach to newer markets nationally and internationally… SEWA is happy
to partner with Amazon which share the same vision to not only provide
women entrepreneurs access to millions of new customers and become
economically secured and will generate employment opportunities for many
more young women,” said Reema Nanavati, a social worker and founder at
SEWA.
Gopal Pillai, director and general manager for seller
services at Amazon India, said he expected the program to reach about
20,000 women entrepreneurs over the next few months. Amazon is also open
more partnerships with women-focused agencies to expand the scope of
the program, he added.
“We will initially conduct workshops at
SEWA centers in Gujarat, Rajasthan and other areas where SEWA has a
presence. SEWA is a prestigious institution that, in its over a decade
of existence, has supported over 19 lakh women entrepreneurs,” Pillai
said.
The program will subsequently be expanded to empower women
through other programs offered by Amazon India like ATES (Amazon Trained
E-commerce Specialists), SPN (Service Provider Network), IHS (I Have
Space) and Udaan, the company said.
Amazon said it held pilots for
Amazon Saheli over the last several months where it on-boarded a small
number of women sellers to initially kickstart The Saheli Shop webpage.
The
special storefront is meant to feature products such as handicrafts,
apparel, handbags and home décor items produced locally by women.
The
move is part of an effort by Amazon India to feature and market
differentiated products by a demarcated category of sellers on specially
designed storefronts on Amazon.in.
The other such category is hardware and food products by start-ups featured on Amazon Launchpad webpage.
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