Amazon Saathi - A peer mentorship program for Amazon Sellers in India

Amazon India announced the launch of the Amazon mentorship program Saathi that will assist vendors to exchange expertise and share best practices. Amazon Saathi helps Amazon sellers and small and medium enterprises (SMBs) across India to gain access to a wealth of content offered on the market by experienced sellers, a statement said.

The Amazon India mentorship program will allow established sellers in the knowledge-sharing platform to share and access content with new or emerging sellers to help Indian consumers better sell them.

It added that established Amazon sellers will connect with more than seven lakh sellers to share their knowledge and experiences of running an online business and help the seller community scale up their businesses on Amazon. We remain committed to enabling any motivated seller to reach customers throughout India and the globe, and our Day 1 strategy has centred on what our sellers need.

After a lot of research and feedback from sellers on providing a forum for sharing and networking information among them, we are launching Amazon Saathi, Amazon India Director MSME, and Seller Experience Pranav Bhasin said.

As a group, Amazon Saathi brings together over seven lakh sellers on Amazon., where new and current sellers can rely on their peers for advice and share their experiences to speed up their business growth on Amazon, he added.

Over the last eight months, Amazon ran a pilot with over 50 active Saathi mentors who interacted with more than 41,000 aspiring and existing entrepreneurs across India, resulting in encouraging feedback and suggestions shared by their colleagues.

Amazon leveraged online events and hangouts, blogs, tweets, and social media communities during the pilot to bring insightful content in English and other Indian languages across various subjects to help suppliers learn the nuances of online selling to speed up their business, the statement said. To help them mentor the seller group, Amazon trained and coached the seller mentors on writing, speaking, and presentation skills, it added.

On December 16 and 17, Amazon will host ‘Amazon Saathi: Meet and Greet 2020’, a two-day virtual experience, as part of the launch. The event will have a ‘fast mentoring’ format that will allow SMBs to connect over two days with Amazon Saathi mentors digitally. Sellers interested in volunteering on the website of Amazon Saathi to mentor other sellers on Amazon can apply to become a Saathi.

Amazon India said that there is no financial incentive for Saathi vendors who volunteer to mentor their peers and the program is mainly focused on exchanging information for the good of the general community.