‘Local Shops on Amazon’ delivers fresh flowers, pooja essentials, rangoli, & more same day from stores near you

As the festivals draws near, sellers on the Local Shops program are gearing up to delight customers with a wide array of festive products.

Last year saw over 3000+ orders of pooja essentials, grocery, sweets, fresh flowers more from more than 300+ sellers.

This year close to 4700+ sellers are offering nearly 60K unique festive-themed products across India. Customers from West Bengal and other cities can have their last-minute festive shopping completed with same-day delivery from local stores, ensuring a vibrant celebration delivered right to their doorstep.

Abhishek Jain, Head, Local Shops at Amazon India said, “We are excited to see the rapid scale up of the Local Shops on Amazon program across the country. In about two years, the program has onboarded over 15,000 local offline stores from West Bengal. These businesses have registered as sellers on Amazon.in and are benefiting from selling on the online marketplace.

"The impact created by the program in the state highlights how digital enablement can help lakhs of offline retailers, micro entrepreneurs, and other small businesses to get online and contribute to a digital economy. With Local Shops on Amazon, our focus is to bring more offline retailers online, accelerating their business by providing them access to a larger customer base, and providing them impetus to create strong brands.”

Amit Paul is the second-generation owner of ‘Oishani Saree Ghor,’ a store located in Phulia, West Bengal.

Founded approximately 35 years ago by his father, it stands as a cornerstone in the regions cotton saree market.

Despite Phulia being renowned as a leading hub for cotton and jamdani sarees, its outskirts translate to fewer footfalls for local sellers.

To counter this challenge, in 2022 Amit opted to digitize their business by partnering with Amazon.in and joined Local Shops in August 2023, thus extending their festive offerings online during major Indian festivals such as Poila Baisakh, Durga Puja, and Diwali, primarily targeting customers in West Bengal.

This strategic move led to a significant surge of 50-60% in their festive sales, as attested by Amit. Recognizing Poila Baisakh as a peak period for demand, especially among Bengalis for cotton sarees, the store has proactively stocked a diverse range of both trending and traditional designs, ensuring prompt deliveries within one or two days across West Bengal.

Deepak expresses optimism, stating, “We anticipate a threefold increase in sales during Poila Baisakh, akin to the surge observed during the previous Durga Puja. To accommodate this heightened demand, we have employed over 20 women across various roles encompassing sales, manufacturing, packaging, and operational management during this peak period.”

Today, Amit is one of more than 15,000 offline retailers and neighbourhood stores from West Bengal registered as sellers on the ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ program.

The program enables offline retailers and neighbourhood stores to digitize their business and helps them supplement the existing footfalls at their offline stores with a digital presence on Amazon.in to expands their reach.

The program helps customers discover products from neighbourhood stores in their city (many they already trust and love!) from the convenience of their homes, while helping local shops transform into digital stores.

With this program, sellers can also sell to customers beyond their immediate vicinity, using their existing delivery mechanisms or engaging with identified courier partners.

They can also leverage other fulfilment programs from Amazon like Easy Ship and Seller Flex to further expand their business within their cities and other locations across India.

Offline retailers, and Neighbourhood stores embrace technology to become digital entrepreneurs.

Launched in 2020, Local Shops on Amazon today has more than 3.5 lakh offline retailers and neighbourhood stores from over 344 cities, including metros and tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

This includes over 15,000 stores from West Bengal that are spread across localities like Kolkata, Howrah, Durgapur, Nadia, Hoogly, Kharagpur, etc. These sellers offer customers a wide range of products including, Home furnishing & improvement, Kitchen, Apparel, Health, Personal care, Furniture, Computers; peripherals and more.

Customers can log on to Amazon.in and shop from some of their favourite local stores in their cities, get deliveries the same/next day and benefit from value added services offered by these sellers.