Pakistan Will Be On Green List of Amazon

In a matter of hours, Pakistani sellers will be able to make a seller account on Amazon with their own ID’s.

Soon, Pakistani sellers would be able to create stores on Amazon using their own identity.

This is indeed a big news for the e-Commerce fraternity in Pakistan.

It is not like Pakistanis were not selling on Amazon. Most of the Pakistanis were using either illegal means or creating off-shore companies to sell on Amazon. Many freelancers were giving their services as VA’s to a number of Amazon Sellers around the globe.

This changes the dynamics for the freelancers, service agencies, wholesalers and manufacturers, logistics and supply chain providers.

I hate to be the party pooper but for someone who remained in the business and studied it inside out, there are certain things that sellers need to know before we start celebrating this huge achievement from the Ministry of Commerce in Pakistan.

• The Amazon marketplace is flooded with manufacturers from India and China. Only a handful of manufacturers and suppliers are working from Pakistan. It would be interesting to see how we are going to compete with India and China as sellers on Amazon. The threat of a supplier moving to become a seller is now going to increase as well.
• Building brands on Amazon is a huge benefit. To build the right brand that clicks with the Amazon Marketplace, you need to focus on ensuring that the customer gets what the customer wants or else your account is going to be suspended.
  
  Now coming on to the more troubling points.
• It would be interesting to see what Taxation laws are developed and how FBR is going to facilitate those who start selling primarily on Amazon.
• The shipping industry is going to play the major role. LCL and FCL are going to start kicking in now as sellers would look to ship out their products the earliest. Single parcel vendors would need to come up with major changes in their systems to enable to quick and fast shipping to customers as Shipping time plays a huge role in how Amazon evaluates you as a business.

Now, coming to the payment portion.

How will State Bank allow the sellers to handle the outgoing payments if someone is looking for a Chinese manufacturer as the process would need to be sped up.

For incoming payments, as of now, Payoneer seems to be the most promising option as it integrates directly with your account. How Payoneer is going to handle this, we would have to wait and see in the coming few weeks.

However, this also opens up a lot of avenues for third party payment providers as well.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Amazon is not an easy fish to handle. There are costs associated with selling that mostly offset your profit margin. There are reviews, feedbacks, customer management, product management, inventory management, order handling, delivery, and a lot of other hassles. Those who are able to make it through, come out as earners of a big chunk of money.