Tech push: Amazon to boost services on app as sellers increase 80% in 2017

Amazon India is in a battle with Flipkart for leadership in burgeoning Indian e-commerce market

After gaining over 150,000 sellers in a little over 12 months, Amazon India plans a big technology and investment boost for its services in New Delhi.

Abstaining from giving absolute numbers, the company said that apart from fulfilment centres, where Amazon has put a chunk of its investment, the company is planning to put a lot more on seller services in 2018.

The online marketplace giant saw 80 per cent growth in the number of sellers in a year. It would, said Gopal Pillai, director, seller services of Amazon, "double down" on investment on its seller app, which has already seen over a million downloads.

As many of its sellers are based out of tier-III cities and tier-IV cities (more than 8,400 pin codes), mostly operating via smartphones, the company says it's been working for the past 18 months on making its seller app user-friendlier.

"We have the largest reach, most visited website, most downloaded app in the country. We have the largest storage capacity in the country with 13 million cubic feet. On an average, we are inducting 3,000 sellers a week for the past five months. At present, we have 270,000 sellers on the platform," said Pillai.

Next year, one of the biggest investments would be on mobile web and app. "We have and are further investing a lot in technology and machine learning. In other countries, mobile, which is like an ancillary screen, is secondary as people use desktops. In India, it is mostly the primary screen. Therefore, we have launched things such as in-mobile registration workflow so that a seller can get on-board," he said.

"The mobile app gets the benefit from the global app as well," Pillai added.

Amazon India is in a battle with Bengaluru-based Flipkart for leadership in the burgeoning Indian e-commerce market. It has pumped in billions of dollars to expand infrastructure, ramp up seller base and other aspects.