Thiruvananthapuram: Netizens in Kerala were horrified to see the throwaway coconut shell on sale on Amazon for Rs 3,000 and the modest tapioca for Rs 1000. A top executive of the online marketplace has said that the company has put mechanisms in place to track and check the tendency to overprice commodities.
Pranav Bhasin, a product management director at Amazon, told Manorama that the company frequently took up complaints of overpricing with the seller even though the platform did not usually play a role in setting prices. He was in Thiruvananthapuram to sign a memorandum of understanding with Kudumbasree to offer the self-help group network a nationwide platform to sell their products.
Bhasin said that Kerala was a prime marketplace for food items and health and personal care products. The consumer state has about 3,000 sellers on Amazon, a huge leap from 100 sellers in 2013. Handicraft products from Kerala were in high demand across the country, he said.
About half the sellers in India were from tier 2 and 3 cities, added the former Makemytrip executive.
He said that Amazon was open to do business with cooperatives in Kerala. He also welcomed more government agencies to get on the online platform. Weavers cooperatives in places such as Kannur are already selling their products through Amazon. The bedspreads sold by weavers in Jaipur are being used as beach clothes in foreign countries, Bhasin said. “You never know how your product will be of use.”
Bhasin said that Amazon India was on the path of introducing more vernacular languages, including Malayalam, to the platform. Amazon is already available in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Malayalam is on the works. There are quite a few Malayalis in Amazon's helpline. The Amazon app is available in Hindi and soon will expand to other languages.
He said anyone can be an Amazon seller within minutes, provided they possess a bank account, GST number and PAN. All you have to do is to download the Amazon seller app on the mobile. Service providers will help you out to take excellent pictures of your products and and publish them with catalogue, he said.
