Flipkart, the top e-commerce site in India by volume, has pushed the central government to pass policies to protect local internet companies from unfair competition by foreign companies willing to lose lots of money. By promoting Indian exports, a top priority of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amazon is positioning itself as a good corporate citizen.

The Indian merchants selling on Amazon.com find their local site, Amazon.in, to be a less appealing marketplace. With a per-capita income of $1,600 a year, most Indians are unwilling to pay anything close to the prices that sellers can command in the United States.

Raja Rajan, head of Boston Creative Company in Coimbatore in south India, has done well selling $13 engraved spoons and $60 folded book art on Amazon.com. He recently began selling the spoons on Amazon’s Indian site, too. In the first six days, Mr. Rajan said in a phone interview, he did not have even one sale.

Perhaps that was because Indians know how cheap such spoons are to produce. Mr. Rajan said his profit margin is about $8 a spoon — rich enough to allow him to slash prices on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and see what happens.

“We are going to cut the price in half,” he said. “I just want to try it.”