Amazon Saheli Program – Benefits, Registration and How to join?

With the economic liberalization and globalization, women entrepreneurs are increasingly playing dynamic role in society and the economy as well. There are many challenges and hurdles faced by these entrepreneurs while pursuing their business. In order to promote women entrepreneurship, many big business houses come in front to help those hard-working women. In this league, large retail company Amazon has come up with ‘Saheli Program’. Under this program, Amazon India creates a Saheli store which comprises of products fabricated locally by Indian women. What is Amazon Saheli Program? How can you join Amazon Saheli Women Entrepreneurs programme? What are the benefits of Amazon Saheli Programme? What are the limiting factors in Amazon selling? This article provides complete details about this programme.

Also Read: How to earn Rs 40,000 per month through Cuemath Programme in India?

What is Amazon Saheli Program for Women Entrepreneurs?

The online retail company Amazon launched a new programme “Amazon Saheli” in November, 2017 which is aimed at empowering and enabling Indian women entrepreneurs to sell their products across the country. Promotion of entrepreneurship amongst women has become the key motive of the programme.

For this programme, Amazon India has collaborated with organizations that work towards the support and upliftment of women entrepreneurship. The women entrepreneurs who are associated with this programme can sell their products to Amazon. in through this store.

How to join Amazon Saheli Programme / Amazon Saheli registration?

Focusing on Indian women entrepreneurship, one needs to a women entrepreneur or needs to have women artisans working for her and be qualified for Saheli benefits for joining this program. Moreover, one needs to have all the minimum requirements fulfilled that are mandatory to sell on Amazon, company or proprietorship details, bank account, GST etc.

If all the requirements are fulfilled, you can send your application to the Amazon Saheli Program. If the conditions are satisfied, you will get an invite to participate in the program. Amazon provides On-line and off-line trainings regarding how to manage your online selling totally free of cost. An account manager has been appointed who dedicatedly help women to get started in their initial days of selling.

What is Amazon Saheli store and what are Amazon Saheli products?

Keeping in mind the challenges faced by the Indian women entrepreneurs, Amazon has come up with a dedicated store named, “the Saheli Store” on Amazon.in. It is a dedicated storefront on Amazon.in, which facilitates Indian women to showcase their talent, display and sell their entrepreneurs’ products to millions of buyers across the country.

Currently, few items like handicrafts, apparels, home décor items, handbags are included in the Saheli store but gradually, Amazon expects to increase the categories of products.

Amazon Saheli Benefits

There are a number of benefits that a woman can avail by associated with the Saheli Programme.

1) The foremost benefit is that if you are Saheli member, you get a separate storefront to sell your items.  Amazon is India’s biggest online market place and one get unparalleled reach to millions of Amazon customers. The company opens up its vast market to these entrepreneurs. They have huge customer base to touch.

2) The store will help them to access the logistics and fulfillment facilities as well.

3) The company is providing free on-line and off-line training to its Saheli members as to how to make product portfolio online and execute online selling processes.

4) You can also receive reduced referral fee to 12% for one year if your category referral fee is more than 12%.

Are there any partners for this programme?

The Saheli program has been rolled out in partnership with non-government social service entities- Self-Employed Women Enterprise (SEWA) and Impulse Social Enterprise.  Amazon will look to tap women associated with the two NGOs and encourage potential women sellers. It is also open to more partnerships with women-focused agencies to give an expansion to the scope.

What are the limiting factors in Amazon selling?

Here are few limitations of Amazon Saheli programme

1) The minimum requirements needed to become a part of this program are very high and elongated. It is almost impossible for a local artisan who is not associated with its partner organization to be a beneficiary of this program. A locally working Indian woman is not that literate to understand the hefty process of online selling. How can one think of registering herself on online selling websites when she could barely speak or understand English?

2) There are few fees and charges involved in the Amazon selling which makes the products dearer while reaching the customer.

3) It is very difficult to maintain and manage a portfolio of online selling products. High definition photography and many other technical points are involved in it which makes it a very cumbersome task for a person to think of online selling.

4) The customers have reported that the Amazon seller services are not up-to the mark. The seller support associates do not listen for days and do not escalate the issue to the internal team.

5) There have been repeated complaints regarding on-time delivery default in the Amazon products. The delivery is not on time, particularly in rural areas.

6) The minimum order fee for free home delivery has been raised to Rs. 500 while other websites are doing it for lesser than that.

Also Read: How to Create Multiple Incomes for a secured life in India?

Conclusion: E-Commerce and specially the e-market place model is a great opportunity for women entrepreneurs. The Saheli program is definitely an encouraging step towards promotion of it. It has a wide scope to flourish as many locally-working women are searching for consolidated platform to promote their businesses. Gopal Pillai, director and general manger for seller services at Amazon India speaks very positive about the programme and expects to touch 20,000 women entrepreneurs over the next few months.

All the best Amazon Saheli Women Entrepreneurs !!!

If you enjoyed this article, share it with your friends and colleagues through Face book and Twitter.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Suresh KP

Founder at Myinvestmentideas.com

Suresh KP is the Founder of Myinvestmentideas. He is NISM Certified - Investment Adviser and NISM Certified - Research Analyst. He has been analyzing financial markets in the last 20 years.He can be reached at suresh@myinvestmentideas.com

Latest posts by Suresh KP (see all)

• How a 5K SIP Can Fetch You Rs 1.8 Lakhs per Month Fixed Income in Mutual Funds in 30 Years? - April 16, 2024
• Bandhan Innovation Fund NFO – Issue Details and Review - April 14, 2024
• I’m 40, Have 30 Lakhs, Where Should I Invest in Mutual Funds? - April 13, 2024