Amazon India launches Amazon Saathi, a peer mentorship program designed for its sellers to exchange knowledge and share best practices. The program will enable sellers on Amazon and SMBs across India to get access to a wealth of content presented by experienced sellers on the marketplace. Nearly seven lakh established Amazon sellers can share their learnings and experiences of operating an online business, and help the seller community to scale their businesses on Amazon.

Pranav Bhasin, Director MSME & Seller Experience, Amazon India, said, “We remain committed to enable every motivated seller to reach customers across India and the world, and our approach from Day 1 has been centered on what our sellers need. We are launching Amazon Saathi after a lot of research and feedback from sellers on having a platform for knowledge sharing and networking amongst them. Amazon Saathi brings over seven lakh sellers on Amazon.in together as a community, where new and existing sellers can lean on their peers for guidance, and share from their experiences to accelerate their business growth on Amazon.”

Over the last eight months, Amazon ran a pilot with over 50 active Saathi mentors who have interacted with over 41,000 aspiring and existing entrepreneurs across India. During the pilot, Amazon leveraged online events and hangouts, blogs articles and social media communities to bring insightful content in English and Indian vernacular languages across various topics to help sellers learn the nuances of online selling accelerate their business. These seller mentors are trained and coached by Amazon on writing, speaking and presentation skills.

Commenting on the initiative, Amazon Saathi - Rohit Khanna, Sunshine Gifting, added, “I am grateful to be associated with the Amazon Saathi program. Not only does it give me an opportunity to coach budding entrepreneurs, I also get to spend time refreshing my knowledge and learn from other Saathis. E-commerce is rapidly evolving. The Amazon Saathi program can prove to be an immense support for sellers to keep themselves ahead of the learning curve.”

With Saathi, Amazon takes another step towards enabling MSMEs across India to go digital. Any seller interested in volunteering to mentor other sellers on Amazon can apply to become a Saathi on the Amazon Saathi website. These Saathi sellers who volunteer to mentor their peers do not receive any financial incentive and are primarily focused on sharing knowledge for the benefit of the overall community.