Amazon’s Indian arm in December signed an MoU with the Federation of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (FISME) to support sellers in the segment under which the e-commerce major would provide the platform and logistics, while FISME would provide support in the area of policy and regulations. Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), Amazon India, in collaboration with FISME, will conduct various events and workshops across the country in order to encourage MSMEs to sell their products to consumers from India and overseas by leveraging e-commerce marketplace solutions. “Through these events, Amazon.in and FISME aim to educate MSMEs about online selling domestically and also B2C (business-to-customer) exports to enable them to sell across multiple international locations,” an Amazon release said.

“As per this understanding, Amazon will take care of the platform and the logistics needs, while FISME will work on the policy areas,” FISME Secretary General Anil Bhardwaj said at the MoU signing ceremony. “Partnership with Amazon India gives us the opportunity to use our extensive network for the development of Indian MSMEs. Through this partnership, we aim to empower our members and partner associations on various trade related opportunities that are present in the market,” he added. Through the collaboration, while MSMEs will get access to experts from Amazon, FISME will help them understand the procedures and requirements in areas such as logistics, cataloging, imaging, taxation, and will guide them through the entire process of selling through the e-commerce route, the statement said.

Amazon India has also announced a dedicated sale day for MSMEs on December 16. “We wanted to make sure that small and medium businesses are taking advantage. These are unique products with good ratings. Based on our initial enrollment, thousands of sellers are already participating in this sale,” Amazon India Seller Services Director Gopal Pillai said. He also said that the e-commerce platform has over 4 lakh sellers in India of which 3.5 lakhs are small and medium sellers.

Speaking on the occasion Arun Kumar Panda, Secretary in the MSME Ministry, said that this segment “actually addresses the problem of regional imbalance in India because they are spread everywhere”. He also said simplifying of procedures had resulted in ensuring an MSME registration takes between 3-5 minutes and that 56 lakh such enterprises were already registered with the ministry.