50,000 local merchants join Amazon India, and the platform's old sellers will be hit hard

Amazon India on Sunday said more than 50,000 offline retailers and kirana stores in 450 cities in India have now been included as part of its ' Local Stores ' initiative , which will be launched in April this year and aims to enable local shopkeepers and kirana store owners to sell goods online.

The " Local Shops " network of more than 50,000 offline retailers and community stores will provide consumers in their respective areas with a wide variety of products, including flowers , home and kitchen products , furniture , electronics , books and toys.

According to statistics, Maharashtra , Delhi , Gujarat , Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are the states with the highest number of "local stores", while Delhi , Surat , Jaipur , Bengaluru and Mumbai are the cities with the highest number of " local stores " .

The implementation of the "Local Store" plan will have a significant impact on the platform, platform sellers, etc. For the platform, this move will help enhance the vitality of the platform (more new entrants), attract more consumers in second-tier and third-tier cities, and Amazon's Indian platform will further grow.

For platform sellers, the addition of more than 50,000 offline physical stores will have an impact on the platform's existing sellers. New entrants will divide up the existing platform traffic. Compared with online sellers, offline local stores are more likely to be favored and trusted by consumers, and the competitiveness of existing sellers will be weakened.

Based on performance during the trial period, the most popular product categories in the cities where the "Local Store" program was piloted were groceries, kitchen products, electrical appliances, beauty products, consumer electronics, household items, furniture, commercial and industrial supplies, apparel, and wireless accessories.

Sellers can avoid popular categories and focus on niche alternative products to seize market segments, thereby avoiding direct competition with local stores. They can also change their business methods, optimize product quality, and optimize operations to gain an invincible position in the competition with local merchants.

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