To promote female entrepreneurship, Amazon India launches 'The Saheli Store'

In a bid to encourage female entrepreneurship in India, Amazon India has announced the launch of 'The Saheli Store' on its platform, which is a dedicated store for women entrepreneurs of the country.

Amazon India has collaborated with organisations that work with towards encouraging women entrepreneurship, including SEWA (Self-employed Women's Association) and Impulse Social Enterprise.

The announcement came just before the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, which is going on in Hyderabad. The inaugural session of the summit is scheduled to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the United States President Donald Trump's daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump.

Ivanka will also be part of a discussion on increasing women in the workforce through skills training, education, and mentorship on the second day. Innovators in workforce development and training will discuss what works and what more can be done to open doors for women at the workplace.

Through the Saheli Store, registered women entrepreneurs can sell their locally produce products online. Besides offering access to customers, the store will help them gain access to logistics and fulfilment facilities as well.

Initially comprising handicrafts, apparel, handbags and home décor items, the Saheli Store will gradually scale up to onboard women entrepreneurs selling in different product categories.

Also Read: Amazon India invests $450 million into its marketplace arm

Earlier, this year Amazon conducted a pilot for the store in Nagaland in association with NSDC and the state government. Around 50 independent women entrepreneurs attended the workshop for a period of 2 days

"Promoting entrepreneurship among women has become a key focus area for companies everywhere. E-commerce and specifically the e-marketplace model is a great avenue for women entrepreneurs to benefit from a fast-growing digital economy," Jay Carney, senior vice-president, global corporate affairs at Amazon said, reported ET.

Amazon India had recently announced to launch a special contest to identify and support product start-ups in India through a programme that will start in Bengaluru on 5 December.

The e-commerce major has partnered with HAX, a global hardware accelerator and seed fund, and New York-based crowdfunding platform Kickstarter that will see one successful company receive funding and mentorship to scale its offerings in India as well as markets in Europe and the US.