Now, directly access four million global products on Amazon: Amit Agarwal

Interview with vice-president & country head, Amazon

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From selling hing and churan to suits from Kenneth Cole, watches by Nixon and shoes by Jessica Simpson, Amazon India aspires to be the “everything store”. Just days after the first round of festival sales on the platform, the American online major has announced the launch of Amazon Global in India, the only country, besides Mexico and China, to have it. Amit Agarwal, vice-president & country head, spoke to Karan Choudhury on the new offering and more. Excerpts:  

What is Amazon Global all about?

Our global store brings a host of international products to Indian buyers. Customers will get to see the fully landed price of a product in Indian currency. After adding import duties and taxes, it would be sold and shipped to the buyer. Customers in India will now have direct access to international brands and a starting selection of over four million global products in 12 categories. Currently, a host of products available in Amazon US would be made available in India. We will later add more categories and countries from where products would be available.

Is there any reason for launching Amazon Global ?

It was planned to be launched around the festive season, as it is a great time to introduce new things to our customers. India is the third market after Mexico and China where we have launched Amazon Global. In Mexico, we got a great response to Global and we hope the same would happen in India. With this, Amazon.in will become the single-largest online destination for buying both local and global products in India.

What are the products that would be available on Amazon Global?

We’ll have home and kitchen, fitness equipment from Zumba, books, shoes, fishing equipment, bakeware, trendy fashion accessories - all from the US.  Apart from a seamless shopping experience, customers will have delivery options such as ‘Priority Shipping’, which is transit in two to four days, ‘Expedited Shipping’ in five to 10 days and standard shipping option that takes nine to 12 days.

A lot of talk in the past few days has been around festive sales, and winners and losers. What is your take on it?

We believe we were the leaders (during the festive sales). Amazon showcased how e-commerce can be done on a massive scale. We showed how to find, discover and buy everything on the portal, how to deliver to the customer in a fast and polite manner. We showcased we were able to cater to 90 per cent of pincodes in India and we had the widest possible penetration. When I look at over 15 million units sold, this was the biggest scale on display here. We do not obsess over competition; we are focused on our customer on how to add more selection, deliver faster in a scalable way.

Are you focused on any specific category?

If there is a store that sells just mobiles or just fashion or a store that sells everything, which one do you think will have the highest footfall? We want to be the ‘everything store’ in India.