Sellers keen to invest in hiring, infra for festive season: Amazon India

"As we navigate the new normal, e-commerce is rightly placed to service customers in the safety of their homes, create new opportunities for businesses to reach a wider set of customers across India, and generate greater value for their products," Amazon India VP Manish Tiwary said. In a separate statement, Amazon India announced the launch of a specialised warehouse (fulfilment centre or FC) in Tamil Nadu, along with the expansion of an existing FC.

A large section of sellers are keen on investing in hiring staff and ramping up infrastructure ahead of festive season, Amazon India said on Tuesday. Amazon India had commissioned Nielsen to conduct a study to gauge expectations of SMBs (small and medium businesses) sellers on Amazon from the upcoming festive season.

The study, conducted earlier this month, included responses from over 2,000 Amazon sellers from 17 cities including Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Indore and Rajkot. About 89 per cent respondents said they expected to reach out to new customers, while 85 per cent said they expected an increase in sales during the festive season.

About 74 per cent said they expected recovery of business post the lockdown. "(About) 29 per cent of the sellers surveyed are planning to make additional investments to have a successful festive season," the survey said. Of these, 59 per cent said they are planning to invest in boosting inventory and warehousing, and 77 per cent said they plan to invest in marketing related activities.

From the sellers who will be selling during the festive season again this year, 75 per cent expect an increase in sales, the survey said. "As we navigate the new normal, e-commerce is rightly placed to service customers in the safety of their homes, create new opportunities for businesses to reach a wider set of customers across India, and generate greater value for their products," Amazon India VP Manish Tiwary said.

In a separate statement, Amazon India announced the launch of a specialised warehouse (fulfilment centre or FC) in Tamil Nadu, along with the expansion of an existing FC. The new specialised FC will offer close to 7 lakh cubic feet of storage space, housing lakhs of products in the large appliance and furniture category. With this infrastructure expansion, Amazon.in will now offer storage capacity of close to 3 million cubic feet across five fulfilment centres to its more than 43,000 sellers in Tamil Nadu, the statement said. Unlike traditional warehouses, fulfilment centres are equipped with highly automated pick, pack and shipping processes to facilitate safe and timely processing of orders. "Tamil Nadu is an important market for us...This expansion will work as an enabler for SMBs in Tamil Nadu helping them with faster delivery of their products to a wider customer base," Abhinav Singh, Director – Amazon Transportation Services at Amazon India, said.

The expansion in Tamil Nadu is a part of Amazon India's recently announced plans to add 10 new fulfilment centres and expand seven existing sites across India..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)