A report by RedSeer estimates that festive sales this year are expected to touch $7 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) as compared to $3.8 billion in the same period last year. E-commerce companies are making significant investments ahead of time to ramp up their capacity to be able to handle the spike in orders.
Amazon India has enabled over one lakh local shops, kiranas and neighborhood stores across the country through its various initiatives, reports the Hindu Business Line.More than 20,000 offline retailers, kiranas and local shops from Local Shops on Amazon program will participate in “Great Indian Festival” for the first time, selling various items like daily essentials, large appliances and home decor products, a statement said.
The integration of Amazon’s programs with one lakh-plus ubiquitous neighborhood stores - for selling online, to help customers buy online, to make deliveries and enable contactless payments - is a testament of the adaptability and inventiveness of Indian entrepreneurs
The Amazon Pay Smart Store format is currently enabling more than 15,000 neighborhood shops to provide a contactless shopping experience to their customers. With this format, customers can scan the store’s QR code using the Amazon app to explore the products available in the store. After selecting the products, they wish to buy they can check out with Amazon Pay, which gives them a choice of using UPI, balance, or credit or debit cards. This is available in over 25 cities including Coimbatore, Mysore, Siliguri, Mumbai and Delhi.
Recently, Flipkart onboarded more than 50,000 kirana shops to strengthen its supply chain and delivery capabilities ahead of the upcoming festival season. With this, Flipkart iexpanded its kirana onboarding program to make deliveries to customers in more than 850 cities. The etailer will host its annual “The Big Billion Days” sale from October 16-21, while Amazon.in is expected to announce its sale dates next week.
