Amazon Business to offer instant credit to MSMEs

Amazon Business has announced its integration with instant credit service 'Amazon pay later' for easy credit facility to eligible businesses customers. The move will provide assistance to the customers with efficient online procurement of goods.

Amazon Business is a B2B retail service platform that successfully completed six years in the country. The service provider had launched its operations in India in September 2017.

This integration with Amazon Pay Later will advance Amazon Business' goal to digitize business customers across the nation and play a key role in expanding credit availability to MSMEs while guaranteeing a seamless and hassle-free payment experience. The government's plan to update the financing Guarantee Scheme for MSME sector during the Budget 2023–24 brought attention to the necessity of MSMEs having access to easy credit for the expansion of their businesses.

Amazon Pay Later service will allow business customers to digitally sign up and gain access to quick credit, enabling them to make purchases across all categories with ease. They will be able to utilize this credit to pay their bills on Amazon.in, purchase Amazon Pay corporate gift cards, travel, purchase insurance, and much more in addition to having a seamless payment experience.

With access to credit, customers can extend their monthly budgets for bulk purchases of products such as daily essentials, electronics, and corporate gifts for their businesses. The amount spent can be repaid in the following month of purchase at zero additional fees, or through EMIs up to 12 months at nominal interest rates with no hidden charges involved.

Amazon Business Director Suchit Subhas lauded the customers and selling partners for their support since the launch of the operations in the country.

“Since inception, we have always aimed to bring together the largest assortment of GST enabled selection with competitive & transparent pricing, widest delivery coverage and innovations in digital procurement to make buying simple and efficient for businesses. Keeping our customers at the forefront, we are happy to introduce Amazon Pay Later to provide them access to credit, thereby ensuring greater affordability for them,” he said.

As per Amazon Business, the platform was serving 14,000 sellers in 2017. Now, over 10 lakh sellers have been doing business with more than 19 crore GST-enabled products on the platform. Customers can claim GST credit on their billing address for their pan-India shipments. A mobile application was also launched for the business customers for improved procurement experience.

The company has claimed to have recorded a 150 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in its customer base and a 145 per cent increase in sales. Tier 2 and tier 3 cities have played a crucial role in its growth, with 65 per cent of buying customers coming from smaller cities. Over the past years, 33 per cent of our customers are loyal buyers who repeatedly come to Amazon Business for their purchases with 60 per cent of them from Tier 2 & 3 cities.