From Seattle to Sonipat: Amazon opens its largest 'pick, pack, ship' centre in India

American e-commerce company Amazon wears its ambitions on its sleeves, literally. Written in gold on the T-shirts of its employees at the Fulfilment Centre' (FC) here at the words 'unstoppable', 'unrelenting' and 'resolute', much like the US giant's play in India over the past three years.

The Seattle-headquartered company, that operates an online marketplace (hosting sellers on its platform) in India, opened its 22nd and largest FC in the country on Thursday. An FC is their term for a modern inventory facility for sellers, equipped with automated pick, pack and shipping processes to facilitate timely processing of orders.

For Amazon, this centre will play an important role in keeping up with orders during the festive season and big-bang sales. And, in putting through same-day or next-day delivery services in the National Capital Region region and nearby states.

Spread on 200,000 sq ft, with a little more than 800,000 cubic ft of storage space, the centre in Agsons Global Logistics Park is in line with Amazon's planned investment for six new FCs in India.

The combined storage capacity from the 27 centres available to sellers on Amazon.in will increase 1.5 times to 7.5 million cubic ft by the end of this year, executives told this newspaper.

"Our FCs play a significant role in the development of an inclusive e-commerce economy, with benefits accruing across the ecosystem. It also enables many more customers in the region to shop on Amazon.in and opt for cash on delivery, guaranteed next-day, same day, release day, morning delivery and Sunday delivery," said Akhil Saxena, vice-president, India Customer Fulfilment, Amazon India.

The company began in India three years ago, with 100 sellers and two categories. It now has 100,000 sellers on its platform and sells 65 million products. After it was not able to make any significant inroad in China, where its biggest rival, Alibaba, rules the roost, Jeff Bezos, founder and global chief executive, has been extremely bullish on India.

With planned investment of around $5 billion (Rs 33,600 crore) here, Amazon has made it clear to not only Alibaba but home-grown Flipkart and Snapdeal that it is serious about winning the Indian market. Saxena says they now have the largest warehousing space among e-commerce entities in India. "We have FCs coming up in Chennai, Jaipur and Coimbatore, among other places," he said.

Another senior executive at the 24x7 facility said the workforce strength here was in four digits, with rotating shifts. "It would be much higher during the festive season," he said. Other than the tech and management team, it mostly consists of locals from nearby villages and towns, who work on contracts.

"We have agencies which recruit the workforce from the local areas on our behalf. We have an induction process which lasts around three days,'' according to a senior executive. Many have to be told about what the company is all about and what it does, he said.

"They are then assigned specific areas and only given training of the work they would do during the entirety of the contract. The workforce is flexible -- it can be more during peak season and less during lean periods."

According to Saxena, while a chunk of the work done by Amazon at the FCs is technologically driven, a large part of operations such as packing and sorting of various items is still manpower heavy. Automation, he says, would be done as and when required.

"In the US, it makes sense as the cost of manpower is high but you will see innovations in this space as well," he added.

AMAZON'S REACH

• The company began in India three years ago, with 100 sellers and 2 categories
   
• It now has 100,000 sellers on its platform and sells 65 mn products