Amazon Pantry back online, resumes services in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune

Company building Alexa experience to check symptoms for Covid-19 at home

Amazon Pantry, the company’s daily essentials store for Prime members, is back online and is accepting orders in a few cities after temporarily shutting down last week due to the lockdown.

It is now serviceable in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune for select pincodes. Pantry offers essentials including food, beverages, household supplies, health and beauty products at discounted rates.

“We are prioritising deliveries of existing orders. Deliveries of new orders could take 7-10 days,” said the e-commerce company.

Amazon Pantry was delivering essentials in over 100 cities across India before suspending services temporarily when the country entered the 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Earlier, the Bengaluru-headquartered company had also temporarily suspended accepting orders and disabled shipments for lower-priority products across India. Amazon India is now delivering the existing orders for essential products purchased using pre-paid payment methods in 24 cities currently. However, due to the lockdown and restrictions on movement, these deliveries are delayed by up to a month.

“These are extraordinary times and we are single-mindedly focused on getting essentials to you. We continue to work with state governments to get clearance and with the district authorities to get curfew passes,” said Amit Agarwal, country head of Amazon India on Twitter.

The company is also building the Alexa experience during the Covid-19 crisis. “Using Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Indian Council for Medical Research guidance, our Alexa team built a India-specific experience that lets you use Alexa to check your symptoms for Covid-19 at home,” said the company in its official blogpost. Ask, "Alexa, what do I do if I think I have coronavirus?" or "Alexa, how do I know if I have coronavirus?" and Alexa will ask a series of questions and provide ICMR and Ministry of Health guidance given the user’s risk level and symptoms.

It is also providing eBooks for free to read on Kindle apps and devices to Amazon customers. These include books in English, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati and Malayalam across various genres like literature and fiction.