On the arrival of Amazon in Pakistan, Pakistan Post aims to partner up with the online marketplace as a delivery service.
By Sayyed Shehzer Abbas
Reports claim that by June 2021, Pakistani producers will be able to sell their products on Amazon. But this does not mean that Amazon products are going to be available in Pakistan. However, after decades of selling a range of products through Amazon using businesses registered outside Pakistan, manufacturers and brands from the world’s fifth-most populous country may finally be able to unlock their export potential through Amazon.
As Pakistan has joined ASL this week, several delivery services have been proposed by the country and Pakistan Post is one of them. Pakistan Post does have superiority over other services being a national postal operator which is trusted nationwide. Moreover, keeping a track of the exports would be easy as it would be in the hands of the government itself. Pakistan promises to ensure the quality of the products as all the products will be refundable in case of any complaints. Commerce Joint Secretary, Ayesha Humaira stated “Those who don’t ensure the quality of their products would have their Amazon seller account blocked,”
Amazon.com was established in 1995 in Seattle and included in Fortune 500, selling not only books but anything conceivable from apparel to industrial goods. The Amazon.com services are spread across 185 countries and 480,000 cities having more than three million sellers from 89 countries forming the best global online marketplace. However, Amazon would not allow residents from Pakistan to sell in its marketplace and, it was the only country in South Asia not included in the list of 102 countries on Amazon’s platform.
Some local manufacturers and brands already sell on Amazon, using offices outside the country. These businesses are expecting that the inclusion in the Amazon Seller List (ASL) will make it easy for small & medium businesses to reach the daily active users on Amazon, including the ability for the Government of Pakistan to finally widen the tax net and collect capital gains taxes from businesses that sell their Amazon accounts.
Furthermore, the inclusion of Pakistan in the ASL will create new opportunities for exporters to sell their products through the platform, which serves both brand owners and resellers, and other manufacturers producing items for the Amazon brand. Though it is told that Amazon engages in loss-leading pricing and other forms of aggressive behavior which threaten to create a monopoly, reducing consumer choice, and becoming the reason for the decrease in the vitality of the top export categories in Pakistan.
The giant e-commerce store Amazon, by marking Pakistan as a seller is enough alone to uplift the consumer’s confidence. There is surely a flavor of intangibility in it, nevertheless, the savory aroma is already in the air.