Amazon's Great Indian Festival sale to help small businesses from UP to sell their unique products

New Delhi, Oct 15: The economic disruption in the last few months has brought about a material shift in businesses around us. Digital transformation has been catalyzed and this trend is prevalent across top metros as well as small cities and towns in India. There is greater interest amongst small and medium businesses to join e-commerce and cater to their customers in these times.

With the upcoming festive season, sellers like Shiva Rastogi who runs a Sports Products store are looking to further accelerate their business during the Great Indian Festival, starting 17th October 2020 with early access to Prime Members on 16th. As per a recent survey by Nielsen to gauge expectations of small businesses the upcoming festive season, more than 85% of SMBs sellers are expecting to reach out to new customers and see an increase in sales, over 74% sellers are optimistic about recovery of business and 78% are positive about increase in visibility of products. Over 70,200 sellers from Uttar Pradesh will be participating in the upcoming Great Indian Festival.

Hailing from Meerut, Shiva Rastogi from Shastri Nagar is part of Local Shops on Amazon program. Shiva has been successfully running his sports shop in Meerut for over five years, but fueled by the desire to expand his customer base, they decided to join Local Shops on Amazon.

"We have been in this business for 5 years and have had a loyal customer base. A few months ago, we decided to bring our store online and joined 'Local Shops on Amazon' program that is helping us address customers from other parts of the city who aren't regular walk-ins. Our online presence has brought in a new revenue stream which is complementing our offline sales - last month we did over 14 lakhs in sales on Amazon. With the festive season coming up, we are expecting much higher traction online and we are preparing for it by stocking up our inventories and even looking to expand to more areas within Uttar Pradesh and even to Punjab, Delhi and Haryana", said Shiva Rastogi.

Amazon India's festive event, 'Great Indian Festival' starts from October 17, 2020. Prime members will get early access starting October 16, 2020. This year, lakhs of Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs) will offer unique selection to customers helping them rebuild and accelerate their business in tough times. Customers across the country will have the opportunity to shop for unique products from thousands of Amazon sellers under various programs such as Local Shops, Amazon Launchpad, Amazon Saheli, and Amazon Karigar and enjoy deals/offers extended by lakhs of small businesses. Celebrations started early with small businesses as customers can shop from these businesses and get additional cashbacks which they can redeem during the sale (10% cashback up to INR 100*).