India's e-commerce market is exploding right now as internet penetration in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people catches up with the rest of the world. According to some estimates, the e-commerce market in India could grow at a whopping 18% annually through to 2024.
Not surprisingly new players and thus competition has intensified this year with the entry of new players such as Reliance Retail, but as ever Amazon remains the major player in India as it goes all out to boost its share in this lucrative e-commerce market, which, if the forecasters are right, could be worth $99 billion by 2024. Jeff Bezos has decided to turn up the heat on its new rivals in India during in the lead up to Christmas.
Amazon recently claimed to have recruited more than 100,000 neighbourhood stores, local shops, and kirana (mon-and-pop) stores, to boost its sales during the coming festive season in India. Of these, 20,000 retailers are a part of the Local Shops on Amazon platform that the company launched in April 2020.
Only 5,000 offline retailers and local shops were a part of the program at launch, indicating that the company has done well to scale up its distribution network at an impressive pace to expand the program to 400 cities. Meanwhile, Amazon has included more than 15,000 local store owners in the Pay Smart Store program, which allows customers to buy products from stores by scanning their QR codes and pay using a variety of options.
Also, Amazon has enrolled more than 28,000 shops in its "I Have Space" delivery program. With this initiative, the e-commerce giant is partnering with local shops that act as last-mile delivery stations. Amazon estimates that these different programs will help it deliver a wide range of products during the upcoming sale season, from "daily essentials to large appliances and from home décor items to gifts and fresh flowers."
Amazon is also promising same/next day deliveries to customers who purchase items from stores that are a part of the Local Shops platform. All in all, the company has set itself up nicely for the end of year sales season in India this year, which is expected to generate $7 billion in sales - a sizeable jump from the prior-year period's sales of $3.8 billion.
The two-day Prime Day sale in India saw the involvement of more than 91,000 small and medium businesses, which helped the company record more than $600 million in sales. The addition of more offline shops for the upcoming festive season could help it do even better this time.
There are approximately 690 million Internet users in India at present, a number that's expected to jump to a billion in the next five years by most estimates. As a result, India's e-commerce market should enjoy spectacular growth - and Amazon is again well-placed to take advantage of another multi-billion-dollar opportunity.
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