“BENCHMARK PRACTICES OF AMAZON ADOPTED IN

INDIA”

Introduction

E-commerce in India slowly started in 1995-96. Internet communication made the

whole system interactive, integrated and seamless. It has also created new
opportunities.

Amazon an American multinational technology company its is situated in Seattle,

Washington. Its business dimension includes e-commerce, cloud computing, digital
streaming and artificial intelligence. Amazon stepped into Indian market in February
2012 with Junglee.com. It is the first e-commerce company to have one million
customers.

It initially sold books, films & TV shows and then came with the plan to sell mobile
phones & cameras.

Initially when Amazon entered the market only 50 million people in India were active
users of internet. But only 40% of those internet users made online purchases.

Today 475 million that is 40% of the Indian population are internet users being
second largest internet userbase in the world. As India is one of the biggest platform
for e-commerce giants like amazon, flipkart etc

This research is to study how Amazon entered Indian market and the various
strategies used by them to penetrate Indian market.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Online shopping was not so well known in India when the e-commerce gaint amazon
entered in the market. Was amazon able to reach the customers initially when there
was already flipkart leading in the indian market. This study explores the strategies
used by Amazon to succeed in indian market.
OBJECTIVES

1. To identify the strategies used by amazon to attract the Indian customers.

2. To study the business model of Amazon India
3. To study the growth of Amazon in India.

HISTORY OF AMAZON

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. In 1998 it started to sell music and
videos internationally by taking over online sellers of books in United Kingdom and
Germany. In 2002, it started Amazon Web Services which included data on web site
popularity, Internet traffic patterns and other statistics for developers and marketers.

It sells DVDs, apparel, electronics, computers, toys, jewellery, furniture, shoes,

movies, games, music, sports including outdoor gear, auto parts, home and garden,
grocery, health and beauty and digital downloads.

Amazon in India

Amazon entered India with junglee.com in Feb 2012 which was just a price
comparing site not a portal to buy products online but started operations in June
2013. It had to enter into indian market as India have billion plus people. But the
advantage was that more than 60% of people were under age of 35 and there was
rising level of disposable income. But only 35% of people were using internet and
cash transaction was more. The organization launched its site Amazon.in, offering
clients a wide variety in books, motion pictures and TV programs. On the first day of
its tasks, Amazon India had gotten in excess of 10,000 orders. In an extremely short
timeframe, Amazon India has turned into a power to figure with in the Indian online
shopping space.

Amazon India as of now offers a huge number of items on its foundation and has a
large number of enlisted users. Amazon India presently offers items across different
classifications, for example, cell phones, PCs and accessories, men's and women's
apparels, books, sports and fitness, electrical and electronic products, films, music,
infant items, toys, grocery products etc
Amazon India also works a Global Store, where clients can purchase directly from
dealers in the United States. Recently, Amazon Prime was started in India in 2016,
which gives clients access to different services, for example, video streaming, music,
digital books, latest offersetc. Amazon India presently delivers to a large portion of
the functional PIN codes in India. It has in excess of 20,000 Indian dealers and 41
fulfilment centres across 13 states.

VISION

"Our vision is to become a trusted and meaningful sales channel for retailers of all
sizes across India,"

Amazons approaches to succeed in Indian market:

1. Understanding the customers:

Amazon has spent time, efficiency and resources to figure out the hint of
India’s customer market. It undertood that the indian custoners are not flexible
in purchasing online and has established kiosks in small regional retail areas
that set up executives to offer an ‘assisted buying’ assistance for consumers.

2. Obliging data transmission challenges:

Amazon understood that more than 500 million Indian buyers still use
highlight phones with moderate network connections. So it has structured a
thinned down form of its application to change in accordance with more slow
system speeds. The altered application still allows for proper browsing
experience, while adjusting to the network constraints.

3. Utilizing Artificial Intelligence to findout the addresses:

Private locations in India are regularly not at all easy to locate, which makes
distribution a threat. Amazon is utilizing AI to carry better exactness to
delivery, including a 0-to-100 certainty score for a location.

4. Take away fake products and fraud:

E-commerce in India has been troubled by a plenty of fake reviews, which has
made customers to loose trust. Amazon is engaged in building trust among
buyers and sellers by fighting against fraud and fake reviews for third party
products on its portal, while advertising safer commodities. Amazon’s India
 team has created breakthrough to findout the fake reviews, fraud transactions
and fake commodities.

5. Widning logistics & satisfaction:

Perceiving the requirement for logistics, Amazon India has proceeded with its
interest in the system with five new fulfillment centres, taking the total of
Amazon India fulfillment centres to 67. Amazon recognize the priority of
widening its infrastructure and supply chain to develop the customer
experience and implement tens of thousands of SME’s to fulfill orders more
effectively.

6. Onboarding help for third party dealers:

In addition to conveying items from major dealers, for example, Samsung
with advancements for the local market, Amazon is encouraging web
based business for small retailers that offer unique items. Amazon has
designed an innovative leadership called “Tatkal” (which means
“instantaneous” in Hindi) to expose how a small dealer can be ready to
trade on Amazon’s portal within 60 minutes. It uses vans that visit small
dealers and distributors. The vans consists of photo studio through which
the workers can take photos of the stock, catalog them and the sellers can
be ready for sales.

7. Local research and development:

Amazon’s largest research and development centre is in Bengaluru,
Karnataka. It shows the responsibility for the long term to understand the
hint of the market and to build user experience innovation especially for
indain market.

BENCHMARK PRACTICES

Amazon Chai Cart

It is one of amazons initiative which was aimed at connecting with dealers all over
India. For a large number of our Indian merchants, tea or chai as we like to call it,
is a significant piece of their lives. From anticipating that morning cup of chai to
begin the day to the second cup of chai during the evening to refresh you and
keep you dynamic – these chai breaks are an extraordinary method to have talks
about business, individual issues or online selling. Along these lines, advancing
for the benefit of our vendors and gaining by this chai culture all over India,
Amazon structured an eye getting 'Chai Cart', which could without any difficulty
travel through the narrow lanes of Indian markets educating sellers about the
advantages regarding beginning an online business and helping them learn the
whole procedure over a cup of Chai.

Amazon Chai Cart visited various markets the nation over pulling in merchants,
producing interest, serving them a cup of Chai and clarifying the advantages of
selling on Amazon. The thought, 'Chai toh hai Bahana, Maksad hai aapka vyapar
Badhana' was generally acknowledged.

The Chai Cart served as an extraordinary break and a stunningly better business
open door for dealers. Retailers and entrepreneurs looking for development were
convinced by the opportunities given by Amazon, enlisted themselves and
became a part of Amazon's undertaking to develop their organizations all over
India on the spot. In a time of four months, the group travelled across 31 urban
cities (15,280 Kms), served 37,200 cups of tea and connected with more than
10,000 vendors.
It also won a gold award in the most INNOVATIVE CREATION OF A NEW
MEDIUM section at NEON awards given by Exchange for Media.

Amazon Tatkal

It is an exclusive initiative called support-on-wheels which helps the small and

medium enterprises to get registered online and sell their products on Amazom
web store in less than 6 minutes. It is a specifically constructed studio-on-wheels
providing a collection of launch assistance along with registration, imaging and
cataloguing services, as well as primary seller training. Its well trained
professionals travel across the nation to assist small business to trade online. By
this plan, thousands of interested dealers could start trading online through
amazon in real time and experience the uses of online selling. It visits tier 2, 3
and 4 cities across the nation and enlists with the local businesses.

Amazon Self Service Registration

Amazon Seller Service Private Limited launched Self service registration on 23 rd

pril 2014. It facilitates dealers irrespective of their size, location and size of
catalogue, to self register on amazon marketplace and begin selling within a day
without any third party interference, accomplishing the process fast, smooth
and clear. Merchants can enlist on Amazon.in by visiting the selling on amazon
area on services.amazon.in and tapping on the "register now" button. FAQs have
been given at each level to direct on how to self-register. Merchants can even
sign-up for fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) through its channel.

Amazon Easy Ship

Amazon Easy Ship, is an assisted shipping administration that delivers a worry

free transportation experience for merchants shipping items from their
storerooms to purchasing customers. With Amazon Easy Ship, dealers can
administer both prepaid and COD orders. All that the dealer needs to do is pack
the shipment and authenticate to Amazon that they are prepared to transport.
Amazon Logistics gathers the shipment and guarantees that the item is delivered
to clients in 2-4 days. Dealers benefit by low dispatching rates, prepaid and COD
orders, shipment pickups, quick delivery and computerized shipment tracking.
Clients are benefited by the traceable shipments, choice of putting in COD
requests and quicker and predictable times.

This "neighbourhood" approach is advantageous for vendors and has profited

Amazon by accelerating delivery of certain items.

Everything for everyone approach

Amazons COO Amit Agarwal has told that the customers in each and every
corner of India should be able to buy products in amazon. Global e-commerce
giant amazon concentrates on each geographic portion of India's online retail
market. When many e-commerce executives told that it was time for e-commerce
companies to concentrate on target markets amazon disagreed with the
statement. It wants to be a platform for anyone trying to find anything like buying
anything online by anyone and any seller to sell anything online.

Strengths in the swot analysis of amazon

1. Vigorous foundation and profound pockets: construction on its initial

triumphs with books, Amazon presently has item classifications that
incorporate hardware, toys, games, home and kitchen, white products,
dark colored merchandise and substantially more. Amazon has developed
as a worldwide E-business goliath over the most recent 2 decades.
2. Customer driven: Organization's vigorous CRM has made client driven
procedures so as to painstakingly record information on client's purchasing
conduct. This empowers them to offer individual things, related things or
pack them as an offer, in view of inclinations exhibited through buys or
things visited. Likewise, the organization guarantees that 55% of their
clients are rehash purchasers bringing about minimal effort of obtaining of
new purchasers.
3. Value initiative: So as to separate itself, organization has made a few vital
coalitions with different organizations to offer predominant client
administration. The most significant key tie ups are with coordinations
suppliers who control costs. This contributes in a solid Value chain. In light
 of playing on economies of scale, Amazon can bring down the stock
recharging time.
4. Efficient conveyance arrange: With its vital accomplices and because of its
Amazon satisfaction focuses, Amazon has made a profound and
organized dissemination arrange so as to make the item accessible even
at remote areas. It likewise has free of cost conveyance charges in
specific geologies.
5. GLOCAL methodology: By utilizing the technique of "Go worldwide and act
nearby", Amazon can battle with residential E-business organizations
through retaining and by shaping/joining forces with store network
organizations. The marking also is done according to nearby taste. For
instance – In India, Amazon is at present utilizing the "Aur Dikhao"
crusade to urge clients to peruse a greater amount of their items.

REFERENCES

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mohanbirsawhney/2018/04/30/7-ways-that-amazon-is-winning-
by-acting-glocally-in-india/#24e4331561c1

https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/amazon-india-to-open-45-offline-
kiosks-in-20-cities-soon-117090700067_1.html

https://inc42.com/buzz/amazon-india-continues-its-focus-on-logistics-adds-5-more-fulfilment-
centres/

https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/amazon-launches-military-veterans-employment-
programme-in-india-1566822767400.html

https://www.quora.com/Is-Amazon-an-Indian-company

https://hbr.org/2016/07/how-amazon-adapted-its-business-model-to-india