



Why Amazon wants its sellers to create their own websites for free
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Amazon is inviting its Indian sellers to set up independent online storefronts, a move that appears to undermine its dominant marketplace in favour of becoming the backbone of the country's growing direct-to-consumer economy. The plan, called SmartBiz, allows sellers to create websites without coding for free while using Amazon’s logistics and payment systems for their sales.
The move comes as India’s e-commerce landscape breaks up, with brands avoiding centralized marketplaces to sell through social media and their own websites. While the strategy risks reducing Amazon’s high-margin ad and commission revenue, estimated at over ₹25,000 crore in India, the tech giant is betting that sellers will become dependent on the ecosystem. The plan is similar to the early days of Amazon Web Services (AWS), where it used low entry barriers to become indispensable for sellers.
If successful, it could give Amazon a strong position not just as a retailer, but also as the infrastructure provider for India’s entrepreneurs, eventually gaining an upper hand over rivals like Shopify and the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Queries sent to Amazon India did not elicit a response until press time. Amazon India’s advertising revenue grew 25% in FY25, against a 21% growth in its mainstay marketplace business, Mintreported earlier.
Read on livemint.com