Amazon India is rapidly spreading its reach all over the country by proposing comprehensive online shopping solutions with convenience at its best.
Recently, CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos visited India and announced to add new category “Food & Beverages” in the shopping list of main portal, aiming to rock the online buying experience of Indians. On the religious occasion Diwali, which was held on 23rd October, the e-store started to offer more than 100 vibrant ranges of gourmet products and beverages. Jeff Bezos, who initiated Amazon India in July of last year, is very much satisfied with the performance in last year that stimulated him to further invest $2 billion for the expansion in Amazon India’s services. The aim is to grab the maximum share of online market and will soon outpace the Flipkart, which is India’s leading online grosser.
Amazon India conducted business meeting sessions with the breakfast cereal company Kellogg’s and Nachos manufacturer, Cornitos for making long-term collaboration in supplying their products exclusively for Amazon. In the near future, the company is aiming to unveil the delivery services of packaged foods and has not decided so far in distribution of grocery items, where many of the Amazon’s officials keep their concerns on to it.
Amazon India is the pioneer that have added food and beverages category in their e-shopping store. Flipkart , the giant player in India’s e-commerce platform has already announced that they will not sooner or later engage dealing in grocery and automobile category. It doesn’t sound unique that Amazon has launched the delivery of F&B products as they had already initiated the similar step in Seattle, their homeland and made the expansion to California way back in 2007, and they have been pleasing in gaining hefty share of returns.
The question is rising that would anyone go for online medium for purchasing grocery in place of “Local stores”, the answer was expected to be cleared after the Diwali (as the proper delivery functions of F&B was all set), but the Amazon needs some time to disclose this experiment in near times. The only point that gives competitive edge to online medium over local stores is that the shoppers can be facilitated with number of benefits such as low and concession in prices of various items and several others such as promotions and coupons. However, there were several concerns associated that may occur while making the delivery of food and beverages articles. These consist of:
- Minimum order (many think it would be Rs200+)
- Price settlement on items (Discounted or MRP)
- Duration of delivery (1-5 hrs)
- Delivery charges (Rs50+)
- Expiry date of orders placed
- In the case of damage, will Amazon refund the payment?
Even though, the services have not been fully completely started yet, but it should be taken into consideration that Amazon is one of the successful online grocers since 2007. The Amazon’s fresh segment gives the leverage to the customer to perform their grocery shopping conveniently. Amazon fresh ensures to set maximum 3 hours delivery timings with a minimum order limit of $35 including delivery cost. This online platform is equipped with user friendly tools for shopping, which entitle to sort out the article’s features with respect to food allergies, ingredients, brands and many others.
This certainly helps in saving the time and effort of online buyers. Other feature that Amazon fresh.com instigated was a “Morning Delivery”, in which anyone can order breakfast item such as eggs, breads, jam etc at 10 pm tonight and rest assured that you are going to collect the same before 7am early in next morning. These attributes worked really well for them and they also introduced 100% payment return policy if the product would not be similar as described. This “No-questions-asked” policy greatly helps them to build and win the trust of the customers and put off the stumbling block for amusing online grocery shopping experience. These strategies helped the Amazon to create its own place in US market where numbers of online stores Walmart, peapod, Freshdirect etc have already embraced huge marks.
The Bangalore based startup venture “Big basket” is the competitor that Amazon would face here. The Big basket offers cut fruits and vegetables and dealing in all grocery items, however, Amazon has not started their grocery section so far. This September, Big basket made the business of Rs.200 crores along with the joint venture of hellion venture partners, Zodius Fund II with Avendus and existing investors Ascent Capital and LionRock Capital. Big Basket will definitely look forward to add some excitement in their huge line of grocery articles.
Therefore, it would be suitable business environment for the Amazon for keep their attention towards second and third tier cities where the people hardly have an access to the notorious products under reasonable prices with few retailers selling the branded articles. Secondly, Amazon should also focuses on their product’s prices and makes it lower than supermarket rates alongside delivery charges.
Finger crossed!! The ball lies in the Amazon’s court that will potentially show us how things to be done in a perfect manner for making the project successful.
