The global e-commerce giant, Amazon, already has a pretty robust catalogue of products on its platform in India. But, the company has today announced the launch of ‘Amazon Global Store’ in India. With this new offering, Amazon will allow Indian users to purchase products from foreign sellers and pay in local currency.
This move from the company gives customers in India access to over 4 million products from international brands. It will further help the company compete more aggressively against its domestic rival Flipkart in the booming Indian e-commerce market.
Commenting on the launch of the store, Amit Agarwal, Amazon India VP and Country Head, said,
Enhancing shopping experience for customers is one of the key pillars for us. With Global Store, customers in India will now have direct access to thousands of international brands and a starting selection of over 4 million global products.
He further added that with the launch of this global store, Amazon India has become the single largest online destination for buying local as well as global products in India. The platform will currently only make a host of products from the U.S. store available to purchase, but the company says that it will soon introduce more categories and countries on the platform.
With the introduction of this service, the process of ordering from other countries has become a lot more reliable and easier for users. If ordered manually, your order might get stuck with customs and could get delayed. With Amazon Global Store, it promises delivery in 10 to 15 days from shipping and also takes care of customs clearance on your behalf.
To further ease the puchase decision of the users, prices shown to customers along with the product will include product price, import fees deposit and shipping fees based on delivery option selected in INR, says Amit Agarwal. India Post, DHL and Aramex will be the third party logistics providers for products ordered from the Amazon Global Store.
Currently, a variety of categories such as clothing, watches, books, electronics, shoes, and office Supplies are listed on the Global Store in India. Amazon has also made it easy to distinguish if a listing falls under the Global Store section as it has placed the namesake tag next to the product listing.
This move by Amazon further reaffirms its belief in the rapidly growing and maturing e-commerce market of India. It has been aggressively expanding its business in India by launching new services every now and then. It is aiming to woo customers, who also have an option of using Flipkart, Snapdeal and other such e-commerce platforms.
The company recently launched its premium subscription service — Amazon Prime and is soon going to launch Prime Video in India. While it already hosted a sale in the first week of October, the company is coming up with another festive season sale, ‘Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale’ from 17th October.
A Kotak Institutional Equities report suggests that the Indian e-tailing market could reach USD 28 billion by 2019-20, registering a compounded annual growth rate of 45 per cent.
