Amazon to Onboard 18,000 SMBs under 'Amazon Pay Smart Stores’ Program

Payment services wing of Amazon, Amazon Pay, has announced to onboard around 18,000 merchants from Tier-II, III cities as a part of its ‘Amazon Pay Smart Stores’ program. The program intends customers to find offline stores which helps stores to get customers easily. According to the company the programmes will not only make the customer experience better but will help small and medium business and retailers and micro merchants and explore growth opportunities

Girish Krishnan, Director of Amazon Pay Rewards, said that the company is looking forward to enable merchants and customers with easy access to credit, reduce friction in their everyday transactions and maximise the savings. 

"Amazon Pay will continue to offer solutions to customers choosing to shop offline including better discoverability of nearby stores, affordability propositions like No Cost EMIs, bank discounts, value added services such as insurance, warranty and much more" he quoted. 

Various cities in the country like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana are seeing the launch of “Amazon Pay Smart Stores Program”. A big number of SMBs, doing business in mobiles, electronics, laptops, large appliances, clothing, shoes, grocery, and kitchen, have registered on the portal. Registration numbers have seen a 72 percent growth during the time period of last one year. 

Amazon had launched this program two year back, in 2020, to smoothen the offline shopping experience of its customers and provide seamless credit to offline shoppers. It is also meant for improving the discoverability for offline stores and offer various affordability propositions for customers.

After the customer enters the Smart Store, he or she can use the Amazon app to scan the store’s QR code and explore the products available within the store. The smart store also allows customers to choose to pay by their preferred method including UPI, Amazon Pay balance, Credit or Debit cards; along with flexible EMI options and a wide range of Bank offers.

Thousands of shops have already been turned into smart stores across the country. Furthermore, several brands, like OPPO, Lenovo, Xiaomi, Samsung, Prestige, Pepe Jeans, Cafe Coffee Day, Barista, Miniso, Puma have partnered with Amazon Pay. 

Amazon has seen taking steps to improve the position of existing as well as budding entrepreneurs. Two days ago, it announced a special grant for entrepreneurs from under-represented communities to let them join its Delivery Service Partner (DSP) programme in India.

The company claims to help interested entrepreneurs start a delivery business of their own , by providing them access to Amazon’s delivery technology, hands-on training, and exclusively negotiated deals on services such as payroll management, insurance, and recruitment technology among others.

The DSP program has helped to create a network of more than 1,000 delivery stations around the world, and has expanded to more than 14 countries such as the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan, and India, among others.