'This festive season, focus for Amazon is speed'

Amazon’s Akhil Saxena, vice president, operations, APAC/MENA/LATAM, Worldwide Customer Service Head talking to The Times of India said the e-commerce giant has laser sharp focus on speed of delivery and the use of its robust network along with strong public/private partnerships to ensure that this festival season they provide the fastest delivery to customers across India. As per initial data, it has been the fastest festive season in terms of speed with 65% higher packages getting sub-same-day and same day delivery in the top 10 cities this year as against 2022.

What potential does India hold for Amazon – present and future services?

India continues to be an important focus area for us to build new customer experiences, explore growth opportunities for small businesses and find talent to power innovations of the future. As we step into Day 1 of our Decade Two journey in India, I am positive and extremely excited about the opportunities that we have ahead of us. India has grown over the last 10 years to become one of the major markets for Amazon globally and we continue to invest in this market for the long term. We have been at the forefront for driving innovation across the world – we have developed and scaled multiple India first innovations and then have taken them globally. One of our most important innovations – packaging-free shipping, a sustainable way of delivering customer shipments with limited packaging, is being scaled globally. Our ‘I Have Space’ program where we work with local kirana stores to deliver Amazon packages in their free time, within the radius of 2-4 km of their shop, has also become a global program. Similarly, in India, we identified ways to improve the involvement of small and medium enterprises through our Seller Flex and Easyship programs.

As the way forward, our aim is to use technology and consumer insights to further enhance our customer fulfilment network.

E-commerce has the potential to super charge the economic development of the country at a massive scale as its key levers are perfectly aligned with the economic priorities.

There is a lot of innovation ahead of us and the pace of innovation will be faster than what we have seen so far.

We are fortunate that we have committed partners in government institutions, small & medium businesses, micro-entrepreneurs, mom and pop stores, home entrepreneurs and many others in this effort to build a modern and digital India.

A decade just feels like the first step in our commitment to India. We are just getting started!

How does Amazon plan to grow in India ?

From an operations perspective, our focus is on ensuring faster and more reliable deliveries and also incubate small and medium businesses along the journey. Our commitment to India is stronger than ever and we have committed to investing an additional $15 billion here by 2030. This will take the company's total India investment across all businesses to $26 billion. You will see us investing in building capabilities that enable us to serve the next 200 million customers in India who come with different needs and challenges. We remain focused on digitization of small businesses, creating jobs, enabling exports, and empowering individuals and small businesses to compete globally.

Who is the real competition for Amazon in India ?
E-commerce is at a very nascent stage in India and there are more opportunities than competition. The market is so big that everyone has enough space to innovate and grow.

(This journalist was invited by Amazon to Seattle)

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