On course to hit $20 billion e-commerce exports by 2025: Amazon India exec

Launched in 2015 with a handful of sellers, Amazon Global Trade—the B2C exports platform of the e-commerce giant—is finally gaining traction in India. After registering exponential growth in the past two years, Bhupen Wakankar, Director Global Trade at Amazon India, is now confident that the vertical will surpass its target of exporting $20 billion worth of goods from smaller Indian sellers by 2025. In a conversation with Business Today, Wakankar shares his business strategy, growth potential and challenges. Edited excerpts:

BT: What kind of growth is Amazon Global Trade witnessing in India? 

BW: We started small in 2015, with some 100 sellers. Over the last seven years, we have grown significantly. In fact, when we completed five years in India, Jeff Bezos (Amazon Founder & CEO) was here. we decided that we will do US$ 10 billion (Rs 82,000 crore) worth of e-commerce exports from India over the next five years, i.e., 2025. However, given the kind of momentum we have witnessed we have revised and doubled the target to $20 billion (Rs 1.65 lakh crore) by 2025. We have done $5 billion (around Rs 41,000 crore) worth of e-commerce exports in the first two years, together in 2021 and 2022. And today, we can say that by end-2023 we will touch $8 billion (Rs 65,600 crore). So that is the kind of momentum we are starting to see. That is also boosting our confidence that we will be able to achieve another $12 billion (Rs 98,400 crore) worth of exports from India in 2024 and 2025 together.

BT: What is boosting your business here: Addition of new sellers or average ticket size? 

BW: It’s a combination of both, actually. Now we have sellers from over 200 cities in India on our platform. Some 125,000 sellers have participated on our platform by now. The number was 100,000 last year. Last year, there were about 1,200 sellers from India who did more than Rs 1 crore worth of exports in one year through our platform. While, in terms of distribution, there were about 25 cities which exported more than $10 million (Rs 82 crore) worth of exports in the year. So, not only more sellers are boarding the platform but also listing a greater number of items.

BT: What types of Indian products are gaining traction in the international markets? 

BW: Apart from traditional Indian strongholds like home furnishing products, we are increasingly witnessing new categories like ayurveda products, essential oils, beauty and hygiene related products. Cognitive toys from India are gaining traction. These are emerging out of India, from local, D2C players. See, e-commerce is one of the primary modes of purchase in major global markets. While in India, there are some 200 million e-commerce shoppers, globally Amazon has 200 million prime members. So, there is opportunity for every category to grow. We are just getting started here. The opportunities are massive and we want all the MSMEs from India to take part in e-commerce exports and increase the seller base.

BT: What are the regulatory challenges that e-commerce exports face in India? 

BW: More than regulations, I would like to use the term ease of doing exports. Our export policies were very B2B focused, where as soon as one sends a good a foreign exchange transaction takes place. But e-commerce B2C exports are markedly different. In B2B exports, a few transactions of large quantities take place, while in B2C exports is comprised of many small transactions. So, managing the burden of compliance for even the smallest of sellers is a real challenge. The port infrastructure, in terms of digitisation and cutting down time are some of the issues. Sellers have to mostly do foreign exchange settlement offline. The authorities are now aware of this and are trying to resolve them.