The 2022 Amazon Great Indian Festival is now open for both prime and non-prime customers. With every passing year, the great Indian festival sale is getting bigger in terms of both offers and customer participation. Every year, Amazon features a few new initiatives for customers and sellers, both. Recently, we spoke exclusively with Mr. Noor Patel, Vice President of Amazon India, about these new initiatives and the Amazon Great Indian Festival 2022 sale. Here are his responses:
Q- What can customers expect from Amazon Great Indian Festival 2022?
The Amazon Great Indian Festival’ (GIF) 2022 will start on September 23, 2022, with Prime members getting early access. We are excited to serve our customers with millions of sellers offering a wide selection of domestic and international brands, products from 2 lakh local stores, traditional artisans and weavers, and innovative offerings from various startups. This year’s festive season will be a bit more special to us as we return closer to normalcy. We look forward to welcoming our customers to the marketplace and enjoying the festivities. Amazon Great India Festival will offer customers to shop from India’s largest selection across electronics, grocery, fashion and beauty, everyday essentials, and more. We are delighted to partner with leading brands to deliver products with speed and safety across all serviceable pin codes of India. We will continue to maximize seller and partner success and provide the convenience of shopping in 8 regional languages along with English while giving the option to also shop using voice.
The shopping event will give customers access to exciting offers from leading partner banks such as SBI Bank; 10% Instant discount on SBI Credit & Debit Cards & EMI Transactions, no-cost EMI on Debit & Credit Cards, and great deals from other leading Credit/Debit Cards, and much more. Customers can also earn virtual “Diamonds” by shopping, watching free entertaining videos on mini tv, playing Games on FunZone & using Amazon Pay, and redeem them for exciting cashbacks.
Q- How is Amazon making e-commerce more accessible to smaller towns?
Today, 65% of customer orders and over 86% of new customers on Amazon.in are from tier 2 and below geographies. Customers across nearly 100% of India’s serviceable pin codes are shopping with us.
To make it easier for them, during the Great Indian Festival, customers can enjoy shopping on Amazon.in English and 7 regional languages which include Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam. Since the time we launched the regional language shopping experience in Hindi in 2018, more than 50MM customers have shopped on Amazon.in using our regional language offering. Customers can also shop in Hindi or English using their Voice on Amazon.in the android app. This festive season, we expect more than 80% of customers to come from tier-2 and beyond to shop on Amazon.in.
Additionally, we launched an assisted online shopping service called Amazon Easy in 2015 targeted toward customers facing transaction barriers like lack of trust, lack of access to the internet, unavailability of payment instruments, or logistics coverage in underserved geographies. Today, Amazon has set up a network of close to 1 lakh Amazon Easy stores across the country – consisting of exclusive stores that were set up for offering assisted shopping on Amazon as their core service and existing mom & pop stores, banking, and other e-governance touchpoints.
Q- How is this Great Indian Festival different from the last year?
Amazon Great India Festival 2022 will offer customers to shop from India’s largest selection at great deals across electronics, grocery, fashion and beauty, everyday essentials, and more. We are delighted to partner with leading brands to launch more than 2,000 new products across categories. Customers can earn virtual “Diamonds” by shopping, watching free entertaining videos on mini tv, playing Games on FunZone & using Amazon Pay, and redeem them for exciting cashbacks. They can also directly interact with experts who will showcase products, unveil top deals, answer customer questions in real time, and offer limited-duration deals. We are looking to work with more than 150 influencers to generate 600 live streams to help customers make informed purchase decisions. We also have live streams where customers can avail of LIVE-only discounts.
Additionally, to help new sellers kickstart their e-commerce journey this festive season, all new sellers register on Amazon. between August 28th to October 26th and launching within 90 days from the date of registration will be eligible to avail 50% waiver on the selling fee* across all categories. We hope that this festive season will bring growth and success to all our sellers and that we continue to offer our customers the widest selection, convenience, and fast delivery for them to look forward to celebrating this festive season from the comfort and safety of their homes. During the festive season, Indians will ask “Kaha se Liya” and the answer will be “Amazon Se Liya.”
Q- What is the kind of convenience and savings that customers can look forward to?
Kickstarter Deals: Customers can avail of “Kickstarter Deals” by selecting their favorite products on great offers across categories till 25th September. Customers can also enjoy the ‘Advantage – Just for Prime’ program which will allow them to enjoy the lowest interest-free installments with a minimum three-month enhanced tenure using HDFC Bank & Bajaj Finserv Bank Cards as well as 6 months of screen replacement through Acko
Prime Benefits: Prime members will get early access to the best deals across categories, including Smartphones, Consumer Electronics, TVs, Appliances, Amazon Devices, Fashion & Beauty, Home & Kitchen, Furniture, Everyday Essentials etc. along with new launches, the best entertainment benefits and much more
Amazon Pay makes Amazon Great Indian Festival more fun and rewarding: Customers get a chance to win up to INR 7,500 in rewards during the Amazon Great Indian Festival. Shop on Amazon.in or pay bills, recharge your phone, and add or send money using Amazon Pay to unlock a variety of festive deals which can be redeemed on shopping during the Amazon Great Indian Festival. Customers who also make their first Amazon Pay transaction on bill payments, recharge, and more, will get INR 50 cashback
Exciting offers from leading partner banks such as SBI Bank; 10% Instant discount on SBI Credit & Debit Cards & EMI Transactions, no-cost EMI on Debit & Credit Cards, exciting offers from other leading Credit/Debit Cards, and much more
Great Savings for MSMEs: MSME buyers can save big on their business purchases with GST invoices, bulk discounts, and exclusive deals on a wide range of commercial selections on Amazon Business
Buy more, Earn more: Customers can earn virtual “Diamonds” by shopping, watching free entertaining videos on mini TV, playing Games on FunZone & using Amazon Pay, and redeem them for exciting cashbacks.
Q- What are your goals for the Great Indian Festival this year in terms of effect and expectations?
We are a customer-centric company with a primary focus on consistently providing our customers with the widest selection, convenience, and value for money for a delightful shopping experience. Customers want more convenience, the best value for money, with a delightful experience. And our constant endeavor is to stay up to speed on what’s happening on technology and new products and ensure that we can get these products on Amazon as a matter of customers expected to buy them. Getting closest to them so that we can fit them fast and deliver it to them as fast as we can.
Every year, tens and thousands of associates and partners across our Fulfilment Centers, Sortation Centers, and Delivery Stations prepare for the Great Indian Festival. We have over 60 Fulfilment Centers, Sorting Centers across 19 states and over 1850 Amazon-owned and partner stations that are gearing up for the festive season, along with 28,000 I have Space partners and thousands of Flex partners ready to deliver smiles to customers across the country.
We have recently strengthened our operational engagement with the Indian Railways, with more than 325 inter-city transportation lanes for the movement of customer packages. This is a 5X increase in railway lanes since it began working with the Indian Railways in 2019 and is one of the enablers for the company to offer 1-day and 2-day delivery promises to customers in the hinterlands of the country. With this expansion, Amazon India now ferries customer packages with the Indian Railways to cities in Maharashtra such as Nanded, Ratnagiri, Kolhapur, and Aurangabad among others.
Q- During GIF 2021, Amazon supported support Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) with Amazon Launchpad, Amazon Saheli, Amazon Karigarits, and several other initiatives across 450 cities. How do you plan to support these SMBs in 2022?
– As we move towards the festive season, we understand how important it is for small businesses. And our goal is to not only make it easier for them to sell on Amazon but also use the opportunity to get more customers and increase their revenue.
– We innovate on behalf of our sellers, and our approach has been centered on digitizing small and medium businesses to help them leverage technology to remove inefficiencies. As part of Amazon’s commitment to digitally enable small & medium businesses (SMBs) in India, Amazon Pay has empowered 9M+ neighborhood stores & businesses with its digital payments infrastructure
– Of the 9M+ SMBs, there are more than 4.5M retail and shopping outlets such as Kirana stores, and general stores; over 1.3M food and beverage outlets such as restaurants, small eateries, and fast-food joints; around 3M service providers such as salons, mobile recharge, internet café, health and medical care, travel, and transport, education services, store owners comprising of miscellaneous categories and more.
– There are several teams at Amazon who continue to work to ensure SMBs are able to see a lot of success during our festive season while bringing the best shopping experience, and great selection for our customers.
– Last year, the Amazon Great Indian festival was our biggest ‘Sellerbration’. 30,000 sellers on Amazon.in, including 300+ local store owners, became lakhpatis. 70% of the sellers that made a sale were from non-metros.
– Even this year, our focus continues to be on maximizing success for our sellers and partners while providing our customers unmatched value and the convenience of shopping from anywhere, anytime.
– As part of this, I am happy to share with you that all new sellers joining Amazon.in from August 28 to October 26th will get a 50% waiver on the selling fees.
Q- Last year, Amazon launched over 1,000 new products across categories. What’s the plan for this year?
Customers will enjoy more than 2000 new launches and exciting offers across categories including Grocery, Fashion & Beauty, Smartphones, Large appliances & TVs, Consumer Electronics, and more from brands like Samsung, iQOO, LG, Xiaomi, Redmi, Tecno, Boat, BIBA, PUMA, Fastrack Prestige, Loreal, Colgate, Aashirvaad and many more.
