How Amazon is gearing up for the Great Indian Festival sale amid the COVID crisis

Bengaluru, Oct 16: The much-awaited Amazon Great Indian Festival has gone live today.

Today, the deals are available only for Prime members. Starting tomorrow the Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale can be accessed by everyone.

The e-commerce platform's focus is ensuring a great festive season for its sellers and delivering products to customers safely.

Amazon believes that the sale will benefit both sellers and buyers alike as they have been affected due to the COVID-19 lockdown period earlier this year. Speaking on the announcement, Manish Tiwary, Vice-President, Amazon India, said that the platform is focusing more on smaller sellers, who, it believes, are very critical for the platform.

How is this Great Indian festival different for Amazon?

Great Indian Festival' starts from October 17, 2020 and 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. Over 4 crore products from Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs); products from over 20,000 local shops across 100 cities will available during Great Indian Festival. 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.

Is Covid 19 an opportunity for Amazon to boost sales in India? If yes how?

One thing we've learnt from the COVID-19 crisis is how important a role Amazon and ecommerce can play with enabling policies - for our customers as much as for small businesses & economy. We take this responsibility seriously, and we're proud of the work our teams are doing to help customers through this difficult time.

At this moment in time, our focus is to ensure our customers get all that they need safely and that we are able to strongly help our small business partners with their business revival to manage through these challenging times. Customers recognize that ecommerce is the safest way for them to get what they need, and sellers know that e-commerce is the best way for them to serve their customers as their footfalls have been impacted.

We are seeing a 50% increase in new seller registrations vs pre COVID19. The sellers on Amazon.in have been receiving orders for consumer electronics, study from home essentials, kitchen & home appliances, smart devices, laptops, mobile phones, phone accessories, personal grooming products, apparel and more besides groceries and other essential products.

How Indians will enjoy their festive season differently with Amazon this year?

This year, lakhs of Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs) will offer unique selection to customers helping them rebuild and accelerate their business in tough times. Over 4 crore products from Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs); products from over 20,000 local shops across 100 cities will available during Great Indian Festival. 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.

Customers can look forward to over 1100 new product launches from top brands. They can shop for deals every day across a wide range of categories including smartphones, large appliances & TVs, consumer electronics home & kitchen products, fashion& beauty, grocery and more. They can shop in one of the six languages of their choice - English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.
Customers can experience never ending excitement with new deals from sellers being

announced every day from the biggest brands and look forward to a wide range of affordable finance options from 10% instant bank discount on HDFC Bank Debit & Credit cards and EMI transactions, no-cost EMI on Debit & Credit cards and Bajaj FinServ, , exchange offers, exciting offers from other leading Credit/Debit cards and lots more. Customers can win daily shopping rewards worth INR 500 using Amazon Pay UPI, send gifts and extend budget with Amazon Pay Later and Amazon Pay ICICI bank Credit card during the Amazon Great Indian Festival.

Additionally, this Great Indian Festival has more for customers with

• More ways to shop, pay bills and discover deals with voice - Customers can now use voice to quickly narrow their search for products, top deals, including Alexa-exclusive deals, or just ask Alexa on their Amazon Shopping app (Android only) as well, to pay utility bills, load money in Amazon Pay, or navigate to the Small Business Store, Fun Zone or the Great Indian Bazaar.
• More reasons to shop - Customers can shop for products they need for various occasions. The Navratri and Pujo stores will showcase specially curated products for the festivals. Customers can shop from the 'Cricket T-20 Experience' Store and cheer for their favourite teams. With the wedding season coming up, the wedding store offers a wide range of products to ensure that one of life's biggest occasions is celebrated as it should be. The Dhanteras store will offer great deals on gold coins, utensils and Diwali home décor.
• More reasons to gift - This festive season is different and Amazon has made it simpler and more pleasurable for customers to send gifts to their loved ones from the revamped Gifting Store, gift wrap products and include personalized messages. Customers can also choose from digital gifts including Prime subscriptions, Amazon Pay gift cards or transfer money via UPI.

Amazon added that those consumers who buy products from small sellers in the run up to the Great Indian Festival will get a 10% cashback that they can use to shop during the sale.

Amazon India has previously said it has created more than one lakh seasonal job opportunities ahead of the festive season across its operations network in the country.