Now, home-based businesses can also sell on Amazon India. Here’s the deal

A city-specific platform for small business to go online has been started by Amazon India and the service is currently live in Bengaluru. The service allows home entrepreneurs and small sellers in fashion jewellery and ethnic-apparel space display their products to buyers within the city.

The entire programme is similar to Etsy and Handmade at Amazon in the US. The platform make things easier for small sellers to register through smartphone.

"We have opened up the programme for individual sellers as well as home entrepreneurs in the fashion accessories and ethnicapparel categories. We have seen 600 sellers and home entrepreneurs registered with us over the period of one-and-half months," Mahendra Nerurkar, director of new initiatives at Amazon India, told ET.

The selection will go on to include home décor and other categories.

Fulfilment of orders is done using Amazon India's logistics network, which picks and packages the product.

"These are mostly small sellers and we are looking at inter-city sales to meet the Amazon shopping experience. The products are delivered within three to five days and all payments are released to the sellers as they are small entrepreneurs and need working capital. The methods of payment are similar to what is offered on the Amazon India website, including cash on delivery and Amazon Pay," Nerurkar told ET.