Amazon on Tuesday said it is piloting a quick commerce service in India that will see the U.S. tech giant deliver grocery and other items to customers in the world’s most populous nation in 15 minutes or less.
The American firm is the sixth major entrant to the Indian quick commerce market, which is currently clocking more than $6 billion in annual sales. Zomato-owned BlinkIt, Swiggy and Nexus-backed Zepto currently dominate the quick commerce play in India that is operational largely in roughly two dozen cities.
Amazon said it is initially launching the pilot in Bengaluru.
“Our strategy has always focused on ‘Selection, Value and Convenience’ and our vision is to build a large profitable business in India,” said Samir Kumar, the new country manager of Amazon India, in a statement.
“So, while we focus on implementing our strategy to offer the largest selection at fastest speeds and greatest value to customers in every single pin-code across the country, we are excited to start a pilot to give our customers a choice to get their everyday essentials in 15 min or less.”
Even as the quick commerce model — delivering items to customers within 10 to 15 minutes — hasn’t worked in most parts of the world, it’s increasingly finding success in India, where a range of retailers and internet firms, from food delivery giant Swiggy to online cosmetics platform Nykaa, are gearing up their supply chain ecosystems to accommodate for faster deliveries.
Myntra, the top fashion e-commerce player in India, piloted its quick commerce offering in Bengaluru last week.
India is the only market where Amazon is testing the quick commerce offering. It’s also one of its biggest moves in the world’s second largest internet market.
Amazon entered the Indian market a decade ago, investing more than $7.5 billion to build and scale its e-commerce offering. But 10 years on, the Indian e-commerce market has barely made a dent to the overall $1.1 trillion retail market and is growing at sub-15% yearly.
Some industry insiders, as well as analysts, believe that quick commerce might be the future of e-commerce in India. Flipkart, Amazon’s chief India rival, launched its quick commerce offering in August.
Many have also criticized Amazon for being too slow in India. Amazon has not been able to capitalize on white spaces across quick commerce, tier 2 markets and categories like apparel, Rahul Malhotra, an analyst at Bernstein, told TechCrunch in a recent interview.
This is breaking news. More to follow.
