India's garment exporters seek Alibaba’s help to go online

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Dec 23, 2016

Garment exporters from India have turned to China’s leading e-commerce giant in their quest to promote their products online and get assured payments.

The Apparel Export Promotion Council, India's nodal agency for promoting business between exporters and buyers, has already had several discussions with Alibaba, an anonymous official told the Economic Times

With Alibaba's help, India's garment exporters will be able to promote, design and customize their products online as per clients' needs and get assured payment, officials said.

Alibaba.com sellers are typically manufacturers and distributors. If the deal goes through it is likely to benefit small exporters from India, as they will be able to sell their products globally.

Promoting garment exporters is high on the government’s agenda as they have been crippled due to lack of demand in the recent years. The partnership is expected to create end to-end solutions for exporters, especially the smaller ones who can't keep huge inventory.

The council may also seek its online partner's guidance for managing logistics in the future, officials said. Although there are more than 8,000 garment exporters registered with the council, less than 100 use online platforms to promote and sell their goods.

“Exporters need to also explore the e-commerce way of doing business and not limit themselves to face-to-face interactions. We realized that they need handholding to put their products online because they have apprehensions on how to get business and payments,” the official said.

The Thailand government and Alibaba Group had recently signed a similar agreement to cooperate on a range of initiatives to develop e-commerce in the Southeast Asian nation.