Amazon India Hits 20 Lakh Sellers: A Friction Lesson

Amazon India has crossed 20 lakh sellers on its marketplace ahead of the festive season, adding more than 3 lakh sellers and recording its strongest year-on-year seller growth in three years, according to Storyboard18. The timing is deliberate: the platform is lowering costs, automating seller tasks and pushing AI-driven recommendations just as brands prepare for the year’s biggest shopping window.

Why sellers migrate when friction falls

For marketers and founders, Amazon’s seller surge is a live case study in behavioural economics. Businesses gravitate toward paths with fewer steps, lower perceived risk and faster feedback. Amazon made the seller journey easier through zero referral fees on more than 12.5 crore products, conversational AI support in English and Hinglish, and free creative tools. That combination lowers the switching cost for a first-generation entrepreneur in a Tier 3 town as well as an established brand handling thousands of SKUs.

The Seller Assistant is a useful signal. Interactions with the tool rose 7.5 times year-on-year, and the number of sellers using it is doubling every six months. The assistant handles listing creation, inventory planning, fee estimates, business insights and growth recommendations. In behavioural terms, it removes the ambiguity that often stops sellers from acting.

Aruna Daryanani, Director, Selling Partner Services, Amazon India, called the milestone “a strong reflection of the confidence entrepreneurs across India place in Amazon.in.”

AI is becoming a sales lever, not just a shortcut

The numbers matter more when they connect to outcomes. According to the report, sellers following Amazon’s AI-based inventory recommendations recorded 35% fewer stockouts. Sellers who acted on recommended deal prices saw a 2.5-fold increase in sales. Sellers using the Samriddhi recommendation engine were 2.8 times more likely to consistently exceed their sales baseline during sale events, and those acting on its recommendations recorded a 174% increase in annual sales.

This is the part marketers should notice: AI adoption among advertisers using Amazon’s tools rose 77% year-on-year. Small and medium businesses created 62% more ad creatives with AI tools in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the previous year. More than 28,000 sellers use Product Opportunity Explorer to find lower-competition products, and more than 2 lakh use AI-powered listing tools.

• Lower fees: zero referral fees on selected products reduce the cost of experimentation.
• Assisted decision-making: AI recommendations convert hesitant sellers into active sellers.
• Timely events: Seller Connects and Ads Hive workshops align with festive-season urgency.
• Infrastructure trust: 160,000 seasonal roles and delivery across every pin-code signal reliability.

What brand managers should do with this

If you sell on Amazon, the festive window is not just about buying ads. Optimise catalogues early, use inventory and pricing recommendations, and test AI-generated creative before the peak. Amazon is giving sellers clear behavioural nudges—fee relief, recommendations, workshops—so the brands that respond early are likely to capture disproportionate attention. The same principle applies beyond Amazon: reduce the effort a customer or partner needs to take the next step, and the next step happens more often.

Amazon says it is on track to bring advanced technology capabilities to 15 million businesses by 2030. Whether that number is reached or not, the psychological pattern is clear: easier, cheaper and better-guided actions change behaviour at scale.

Source: Storyboard18