E-commerce giant Amazon India announced its plans to expand its fulfillment network in India, with a nearly 40 per cent increase in its storage capacity over the last year. With this expansion, Amazon.in will have more than 43 million cubic feet of storage capacity, across 15 States, supporting around 850,000 sellers across India.
The expansion is in line with Amazon India’s continued efforts to heavily invest in the country and create tens of thousands of direct and indirect work opportunities. Amazon India’s overall fulfillment network will be spread across a floor area of more than 10 million square feet. This is more than the land size of 125 football fields, housing millions of products from notebooks to dishwashers.
“The rapid expansion of our fulfillment network accelerates on our commitment to serve and empower small and medium businesses in India and customers,” said Akhil Saxena, VP, customer fulfillment operations, APAC, MENA and LATAM, Amazon. “With the increased storage capacity of 43 million cubic feet, we will continue to seamlessly cater to the growing demand of our customers, while offering a better experience with a wider selection and faster delivery.”
Saxena said this expansion will also provide a fillip to the ancillary businesses that support Amazon. These include those involved in packaging, logistics, and transportation, amongst others, while creating meaningful work opportunities across the country.
The expansion would help Amazon take on competitors including Walmart-owned Flipkart, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance JioMart, and Tata Digital, which recently made its foray into the area by acquiring a controlling stake in BigBasket. Flipkart Group recently raised $3.6 billion, including from SoftBank, valuing the company at $37.6 billion, which is more than a 50 per cent rise in a year. With this development, Flipkart will continue to make deeper investment in people, technologies, supply chains, and infrastructure to address the requirements of a rapidly growing consumer base in India.A key focus area for the group is to help informal commerce segments leverage the power of technology. Through its expanding grocery and last-mile delivery programmes, the group will also work with kiranas to help them digitise and grow. Flipkart said it would focus on accelerating growth for millions of small and medium Indian businesses, including kiranas.
With this expansion, Amazon India has more than 60 fulfillment centers and more than 25 specialised sites dedicated to Amazon Fresh selection for daily essentials and grocery, across India. The launch of 11 new fulfillment centers and expansion of 9 existing ones across States such as Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, Assam, Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, is designed to deliver a smarter, faster, and more consistent experience for its customers and sellers across the country. Some of these new fulfillment centers will be operational ahead of Prime Day 2021. All new fulfillment centers will be operational before the festive season, enabling customers to have what they need to be delivered to their doorstep.
“E-commerce has played a crucial role throughout the pandemic by supporting people, small businesses, and creating thousands of local job opportunities,” said Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, the government think tank. “I am happy to see the focussed investments by Amazon across Indian states in building and scaling the state-of-the-art infrastructure. This will play a critical role in supporting MSMEs jump-start from the economic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic and accelerate their journey towards being digital entrepreneurs,” he said.
Kant said the future is digital and the MSMEs must become drivers of this growth. “My best wishes to all the Indian MSMEs and Amazon for being committed to the agenda of building a dynamic, vibrant and resilient Digital India,” said Kant.
Buildings across Amazon India’s fulfillment network are designed with state-of-the-art technology and efficient building systems that minimize energy usage. The buildings have on-site and off-site solar panels, which produce solar power. Most buildings are also designed to be net water zero with multiple initiatives such as rainwater collection tanks, recharge wells to replenish water into aquifers, sewage treatment plants, and ultra-low water-efficient fixtures. Fulfillment centers are also being designed to make these workplaces accessible to people with disabilities as Amazon India continues to hire a diverse workforce and make the workplace more inclusive.
Amazon said it has created one of the most advanced fulfillment networks and sellers in India have been benefitting from Amazon’s expertise in fulfillment, reliable nationwide delivery, and customer service. When using Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA), sellers across India send their products to Amazon’s FCs. Once an order is placed, Amazon picks, packs, and ships the order to the customer. It also manages returns on behalf of the sellers. The firm said customers have easy and convenient access to over 200 million products across hundreds of categories.
Amazon India said it places tremendous value and focus on the well-being and safety of its people across its fulfillment network as everyone faces the challenges associated with Covid-19. Recently, Amazon India announced the completion of more than 130,000 vaccinations for its associates, employees, and their dependents. This included vaccination events hosted in partnership with leading healthcare providers across several cities.
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