Amazon is one of the largest internet companies founded by Jeff Bezos on 5 July 1995. Initially, the company was a bookseller but later on, it has expanded to a variety of items like music, movies, household goods, electronic products, software, food, toys, jewelry, etc. today amazon is one of the most powerful brands in the world.
It is an online platform that is used by individual sellers, Businesses, and manufacturers to sell their inventory. It contains websites for a dozen different countries/regions and can ship to any country/region in the world. It provides retail websites for brands such as Sears Canada, Marks & Spencer, and Lacoste. It also has more than 40 sub-brands, such as Zappos, Diapers.com, Goodreads, IMDb, etc.
2020 is proved to be an incredible year for Amazon. The pandemic has brought Amazon even greater market share and sales to the company because people prefer more online shopping. According to E-marketers, the company has increased its share of e-commerce sales from 37.3% in 2019 to 38% in 2020.
Pakistan was the only South Asian country that was not among the 102 countries on the Amazon platform. Pakistani companies need to register from their overseas offices or manufacture products of other brands on Amazon. Some of the products of Pakistan were available on this platform for example textile, sports, leather, and surgical products. Recently Amazon has updated its countries list and Pakistan is added to the seller list.
The Adviser for Commerce and Investment to Prime minister, Abdul Razak Dawood said that this is a great opportunity for the youth, SMEs, and women entrepreneurs of the country to enter the global market. He furthermore added that the policies of E-commerce will help eliminate corruption and increase productivity by play an important role in promoting Pakistani products overseas. Now Pakistani companies can use Pakistani data (Pakistani banking) to create their accounts in Amazon.
The prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan welcomed this development by saying that this opportunity will open doors for the young generation to export market. The innovation will completely change the business scenario that can lead to an era of drastic economic growth.
Advantages of amazon for Pakistan:
- First of all the platform of amazon is available for all, it is easy to enter and within a small duration, you can make a successful business. This means it will create job opportunities in the country, local companies can build their brands, content and have an effective representation that can attract consumers and bring profit to the company.
- Secondly, this platform already popular with worldwide users so your visibility will be maximized without worrying about search engine optimization (SEO) but you have to pay a high amount to the company.
- Thirdly Amazon has earned the trust of its customers, they immediately fix problems face by their clients. It has a good reputation so working with such an established platform can lead to success in a short duration.
Disadvantages of Amazon for Pakistan:
Although this platform provides a lot of facilities to the users but there are some drawbacks.
- When you start your business you need to pay a fee to the company at various points. If you are using products with low profit, there may not be any profit from selling them on Amazon. Therefore a developing country like Pakistan has to struggle more for a successful position.
- Secondly, there is a lot of competition for survival, there are millions of competitors so you should offer something unique to your consumers. So people need to learn the strategies to get better at online trading.
- Thirdly you lose control and independence after starting a business on Amazon. You have to follow the way amazon shows you. You have to agree to their principles which can be difficult to
Final thoughts:
All in all, adding Pakistan to amazon’s seller’s list is a very positive and giant opportunity for the country to get connected to the global market. It will bring constructive changes and can improve the economy of the country. Although the first stages might be challenging but we need to acquire the strategies and work smartly while dealing with such a global market.