Amazon India

The Market Context: A Massive Yet Fragmented SMB Landscape

India’s small and medium business (SMB) ecosystem is the backbone of its economy — contributing nearly 30% to the country’s GDP and employing over 100 million people. But despite their scale, SMBs have historically been left out of the digital commerce boom.

For most of these businesses, going online isn’t just about logging into a portal. It’s about understanding how to sell, how to list, how to price, how to compete. It’s about trust, education, and the ability to see digital as a growth channel — not a risk.

That’s the gap Amazon India wanted to bridge. But doing it at scale meant solving for three things simultaneously:

Seller onboarding and activation at speed

Education across regions, languages, and verticals

Retention and growth once sellers go live

Enter ScalePods.

The Challenge: Activation Without Drop-Off

Amazon already had reach. The infrastructure was strong. But in key underrepresented seller categories — such as regional apparel, local electronics, or specialized FMCG — activation rates were lagging. Sellers were signing up but taking too long to go live, or dropping off after onboarding.

The problems were layered:

Generic onboarding journeys weren’t connecting with category-specific sellers

Communication felt transactional, not enabling

Seller education wasn’t always timely or contextual

Internal teams lacked scalable playbooks to tailor outreach

Amazon didn’t need more messaging — they needed precision GTM for enablement.

What We Did: Building a Seller GTM Engine That Works at Scale

1. Designed Category-Specific Onboarding Journeys

We started by studying seller behaviors across four focus categories. Each vertical had different hurdles. For example:

Apparel sellers needed support around cataloging and image quality

FMCG sellers were confused about regulatory documentation

Electronics sellers hesitated due to pricing complexity and logistics fears

We broke these down into persona-specific onboarding tracks — so each seller saw only what was relevant, in the order they needed it.

Each journey included:

Contextual guidance (videos, prompts, templates)

Predictable timelines to reduce friction

Tiered nudges based on seller behavior patterns

2. Automated Outreach That Felt Human

We built automated outreach workflows that didn’t feel like mass blasts. Each communication flow was tailored to:

Stage of onboarding (new signup vs. inactive vs. live but underperforming)

Region (language and tone adapted)

Category-specific value props

These sequences were integrated into Amazon’s internal CRM and triggered based on seller activity, ensuring the right nudge at the right moment.

3. Playbooks for Regional Scale

We codified everything into GTM playbooks — but not the kind that sit on shelves. These were designed for field teams, category managers, and partner onboarding agencies.

Each playbook included:

Messaging frameworks in 4 local languages

Talk tracks for tele-calling teams

Objection handling FAQs based on real seller data

Step-by-step escalation SOPs

We ran enablement sessions across 4 major states, onboarding local teams into the system with real-time feedback loops.

Impact Delivered

27% increase in seller activation rates across target categories

40% reduction in time-to-live for new sellers (from sign-up to first product listed)

GTM playbooks scaled across 4 key states, powering consistent execution across regions

Higher NPS scores reported in seller onboarding satisfaction surveys

Improved internal coordination between category teams and onboarding support