Samsung and Facebook today announced a new partnership meant to further accelerate efforts to digitalize India’s economy. The initiative is largely educational in nature as the two tech giants opted to place their initial focus on training Indian retailers to take full advantage of social media and other Internet solutions in everyday business. With Samsung being the driving force behind this digital push, it’s unsurprising the workshops it’s organizing with Facebook are specifically teaching offline retailers how to sell Galaxy devices online.
Looking at the broader picture, today’s announcement is just the latest step in Samsung’s endeavors to increase online sales in India which plummeted as a direct consequence of the ongoing coronavirus lockdown. Earlier this month, the company already helped 20,000 offline retailers in India get connected and restart their activities on the World Wide Web. That’s on top of generous online sales that Samsung India has been running in recent weeks.
As part of the Facebook partnership, Samsung already trained 800 offline merchants in the country, with numerous other sessions being planned in the coming days. These workshops are primarily meant to help merchants in India get started with business accounts for Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as Facebook Business Pages. Establishing that first point of contact with potential customers is arguably the biggest hurdle for offline retailers looking to go digital; afterward, they’ll be navigating a more familiar territory of plugging deals and helping consumers pick out the right product for them, Samsung and Facebook said.
At the same time, Samsung reopened some of its physical storefronts in the country, though it’s quite obvious this digitalization initiative is here to stay even after the novel coronavirus threat has been dealt with.
