Amazon, Flipkart Launch Studio on Wheels Services for Sellers

E-commerce giants Amazon India and Flipkart announced the launch of their studio on wheels service on Wednesday, in an attempt to engage with small and medium businesses and help them sell their wares online.



Amazon Tatkal, its studio-on-wheels solution, offers sellers facilities like registration, imaging and cataloguing services, as well as basic seller training. Amazon India said that the service enables SMBs to get online and sell on Amazon.in, in less than 60 minutes.

Starting with New Delhi, trained company representatives will traverse the country to educate sellers on the benefits of specialised seller services offered by Amazon, the company said.

"Our conversations with hundreds of SMBs reveal that there is a high level of interest among them to get online and start selling, but they are unable to overcome perception barriers of the process being time consuming, tedious and complex," said Gopal Pillai, Director and GM, Seller Services, Amazon India in a press statement. "We believe this initiative will help sellers to overcome these constraints, get them onboard, and start selling on the Amazon platform with speed and ease," he added.



Flipkart Spotlist, its cataloguing and listing service for sellers, enables small businesses and artisans to list their products from their premises. Cataloguing partners will travel on Spotlist-branded vans and bikes to seller locations, equipped with cataloguing tools and technologies, including cameras, half-mannequins, and photo-boxes to help sellers list their products instantly following the shoot, the company said.

Spotlist enabled cities include Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, and Hyderabad. The company said that over a thousand sellers have availed of Spotlist, and close to 10,000 products have been catalogued through the service. Flipkart said that it is extending Spotlist to freelance wedding and party photographers, who can register as cataloguing partners and open a new revenue stream.

Amazon, which launched its Global Selling Program for sellers in India in May 2015, said that over 6,000 sellers are selling their 'Make in India' products on Amazon's nine global marketplaces to a base of over 294 million worldwide customers.