Over half of e-commerce traffic from non-metros in India, says Amazon
Over half of its traffic and sales come from Tier-II and Tier-III cities just as over 50 per cent of the sellers come from non-metro cities too in India, Amazon India Director Operations Akhil Saxena said, adding that this has forced the company to innovate its technology accordingly .
“The e-commerce company, which entered India 25 months ago, has therefore innovated its technology to handle the poor internet connectivity in many of these areas”, he said.
Nearly 70 per cent of the new customers, who participated in the ‘Freedom Sale’ announced by Amazon India in August, were from the smaller cities, a company spokesperson said.
She said that the non-metro sellers offered a varied fare ranging from gourmet food to stationery.
Amazon India operates in India through Amazon Seller Services Pvt. cataloguing over three crore products. It now has 41 departments selling books and pet supplies. However it is yet to offer pre-owned books a major product segment in many countries.
To a query on this, Mr. Saxena declined to give any timeline for commencing this business, without ruling it altogether. Consumer electronics, fashion, FMCG, books and home and kitchen goods tops the sales charts for Amazon which is jostling for an increasing share of the Indian e-commerce pie with two home-grown companies Snapdeal and Flipkart.
Mobile devices contribute 65 per cent of the traffic with the rest coming from through the web.
Mr. Saxena was here to launch a 83,000 square feet warehouse near here. This is the 22 such facility for Amazon. These facilities allows sellers to reduce their operational costs while increasing sales. It also boosts local employment through ancillarisation.
Mr. Saxena also mentioned the pilot launched in Bengaluru under which five kirana stores are offering their goods with a 90 minute delivery time.
The company also offers shopping facility to those not on the net.
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Source:Thehindu
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