Amazon India launches performance-based benefits program for 7 lakh sellers
Amazon.in on Monday announced the launch of STEP, a performance-based benefits program designed to help sellers accelerate their growth on Amazon.in. “STEP simplifies the seller experience by providing customised and actionable recommendations which help sellers improve key customer experience metrics and in turn, their growth. By improving performance, sellers can unlock benefits across multiple levels like ‘Basic’, ‘Standard’, ‘Advanced’, ‘Premium’ & more. These benefits include fee waivers, faster disbursement cycles, priority seller support and world-class free account management. STEP puts sellers in charge of their success on Amazon.in by helping them track their performance, benefits and growth in real-time through the STEP Dashboard on Seller Central,” Amazon said in a statement.
Using customised and actionable recommendations, STEP enables sellers to improve key seller controllable metrics like cancellation rate, late dispatch rate, return rate, among others. Based on their performance, sellers can access benefits like online and offline training, fee waivers, faster disbursement cycles, and free account management. Starting December 1, 2020, all sellers on Amazon.in will enjoy ‘Standard’ benefits up to March 31, 2021, and effective April 1, 2021 will be eligible for ‘Basic’, ‘Advanced’, ‘Premium’ and more based on their performance from January 1 to March 31, 2021. All sellers will get an opportunity to upgrade their level and corresponding benefits based on their performance every quarter.
With the launch of STEP, Amazon is introducing its revised fee structure, which was earlier deferred to after Diwali. The revised fees, effective December 1, 2020, are linked to STEP levels and include waiver on weight handling fees and lightning deal fees as part of STEP benefits. In addition, there will be reduction in closing fee charges for products in low price range (Rs 250-500) and zero disposal fees for items shipped from Amazon fulfilment centres.
Manish Tiwary, Vice President, Amazon India, said, “STEP empowers sellers of all sizes and tenure to drive their growth on Amazon.in by focusing on their performance on key metrics which matter to customers. STEP provides objective and transparent criteria along with benefits designed to help sellers improve their performance on these metrics in a predictable manner. At Amazon, we believe that focusing on long term customer experience matters. We have spent time obsessing over every detail of the STEP program and carefully crafting each element to ensure our valuable sellers can provide a great customer experience and in turn, grow and be successful on Amazon.in.”
Amazon.in says it has taken several initiatives this year to help its seller community of more than 7 lakh sellers overcome obstacles and get their businesses back on track. These include free COVID-19 health insurance (offered by Acko in partnership with Amazon), on demand payment disbursement, relaxation in performance metrics, fee waivers on inventory storage fees and 50% waiver on ‘Sell on Amazon’ fees for small sellers, and deferring its marketplace fee revisions to December 2020.