Amazon ends second year of India operations with wider offerings

Increases warehousing capacity, opens seven new fulfilment centres in 2014

With the Indian e-commerce sector becoming fiercely competitive, US-based e-tailing major Amazon’s Indian arm launched 24 new stores, took its product offerings to 19 million, and grew its total seller base to 16,000 in 2014.

Despite regulatory issues around its fulfilment centres, Amazon.in increased its storage capacity in India to half-a-million sq ft from 150,000 sq ft, as the company set up seven new fulfilment centres - one each in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. Amazon.in now has eight operational fulfilment centres and can provide same-day-delivery on nearly half-a-million products that it fulfils across hundreds of pin codes.

During its second year of operations in the country, Amazon.in saw “huge traction” from non-metro cities, which now make up for nearly 50 per cent of the total number of orders received. Additionally, in line with peers, Amazon.in saw an increased traction from mobile devices during the year. The company now gets nearly 50 per cent of its traffic from mobile devices.  Amazon.in received several unique orders from small towns and cities in the country, such as musical instruments ordered from Rajahmundry in rural Andhra Pradesh, and Bokaro and Hazaribag in Jharkhand. Also, the website saw orders for food products for birds, turtles and guinea pigs from Nadiad, Guntur, Vishakapatnam, Nagpur and Pondicherry. There were also orders for exotic products such as flowering tea from Bhatinda, Hoshiarpur, Chamarajanagar, Tadepalligudem, and Khelmati.

"It has been quite an exciting year and, as a team, we are very humbled by the response from our sellers and customers alike," said Amit Agarwal, vice-president and country manager of Amazon India. "We remain committed to enabling more and more sellers, especially Indian SMEs (small and medium enterprises), to grow profitably in the new digital age and explore opportunities to provide them easy and cost-effective access to both domestic and global markets."

Among others, Amazon.in added gourmet and specialty foods, pet supplies, musical instruments, office and stationery supplies and precious jewellery stores on its website during the year. In line with competitors, Amazon also launched several exclusive product ranges, such as OnePlus One smartphone, X Box 360, Coke Zero, Victorinox travel gear, The Trunk Label, Canon Pixma and MG 5670 printers.

Amazon.in highlights in 2014

* Launched Hindi language phone support for customers

* Launched seller-specific innovations such as Self Service Registration & Amazon Easy Ship

* Launched 'Pay with Amazon' service

* Amazon.in has the ability to service 19,000 pin codes across India

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