By Nqobile Dludla

CAPE TOWN, Jan 16 (Reuters) - U.S. e-commerce giant

Amazon.com ( AMZN ) opened on Thursday a walk-in centre in South

Africa that it says will help its independent sellers attract

more customers and expand their businesses, while it also seeks

to gain market share.

For Amazon ( AMZN ) - which is striving to catch up with

market-leader Takealot, owned by Naspers - the centre

can increase its product range, increasing potential revenue.

"The biggest thing is product breadth for our customers. We

just want to have loads of products that people can buy," Robert

Koen, Managing Director of Amazon Sub-Saharan Africa told

Reuters after the launch event.

More than 60% of sales in Amazon's ( AMZN ) stores globally are from

independent sellers - most of which are small- and medium-sized

businesses.

Located at Amazon's ( AMZN ) head office in Cape Town, the centre

offers local sellers a range of services, such as on-the-spot

registration to sell on Amazon.co.za, training, product imaging

and cataloguing assistance, and shipping and logistics support.

The Seattle retailer launched in South Africa last year May,

its first Sub-saharan African country.

Speaking on performance during the holiday season, Koen

said: "I think Q4 (fourth quarter) was actually very

encouraging. We exceeded all the goals that we set for

ourselves."

He added first-time shoppers were returning to its online

store and had given good feedback on the speed of delivery.