We are customer-obsessed. Our strategy is to start with customer experience and work backwards.

We are customer-obsessed. Our strategy is to start with customer experience and work backwards.

Amit Agarwal, Vice President and Country Manager, Amazon India says, Amazon strategy is to start with customer experience and work backwards from it and is focused to work on them by starting new initiatives and innovations.

From partnering with the Indian Postal Service to introducing the 'One-Day', 'Two-day', Sunday and midnight delivery models, to Amazon Easy Ship and Pickup, to the most recent innovation Kirana Now, the customer-obsessed Amazon.in cares only about what customers can buy from them. Once we have the products that they care about, says Amit Agarwal, we focus on whether it is available to them at competitive prices in a fast and reliable manner. In an interaction with Retailer Media, Amit Agarwal talks about where Amazon India stands as of now, its customer-only focus and other 'first' initiatives introduced by it.  

 

How is Amazon.in different from other e-tailers/marketplaces?

Our strategy is global, very simple and is captured in a flywheel. The execution of this strategy is local. Our strategy is that you start with the customer experience and work backwards from it. Building a great customer experience drives traffic; traffic attracts sellers; more sellers drive more selection and this further improves the customer experience. This is a flywheel. When this flywheel spins at a high degree of rotation over many years, it results in growth. This growth enables lowering of the cost structure in the ecosystem which in turn drives lower prices and enhances the customer experience further.

 

A lot of e-tailers are opening only-mobile shops, do you think eCommerce will give way to mobile commerce? How do you see the buying behaviour changing in the near future?

The customer behaviour on mobile devices is evolving fast and we are observing and learning. The unique capabilities of mobile such as location awareness, camera and voice will transform shopping experience dramatically. Payments over mobile devices are another area where a lot of innovative work is being done. The smaller screen size of the phone also has impact on how customers browse, search, discover and research products on the phone. Amazon is focused on optimising these customer experiences on mobile.

Nearly 50 per cent traffic comes through mobile phones and there is a sharp increase in customers as well as quantum of shopping on our apps. Additionally, the repeat rate of customers is very healthy indicating a good shopping experience. This is only expected to grow northwards in 2015.

 

Talk to us about the opportunities and challenges being in your kind of business. What do you have to say about the changing trends in online marketplaces?

The Indian eCommerce space is still at a very nascent stage with significant potential for innovation and growth. We believe growth is at an inflection point and there is a tremendous opportunity. We believe there is room for multiple formats, players and most importantly, for innovation. 

 

Did you have a problem in rooting Amazon.in in the market at the time of inception? How has the journey been so far?

We launched Amazon.in in India in June 2013. We have completed 23+ months of operations in India so far and have received a fabulous response from both customers and sellers. We launched in India with two categories - Books and Movies & TV Shows - and in 23+ months, our total selection now stands at more than 22 million products across hundreds of stores and categories, making Amazon.in India's largest online store.

On an average, we have launched a new department every 14 days since we launched in India. We have witnessed phenomenal selection growth across several stores and are already the largest across 13 stores that are on www.amazon.in including Books, Music, Video Games, Toys, Home & Kitchen, Luggage and Backpacks, Fashion Jewellery, Beauty Products, Movies & TV shows, Men's Inner Wear, Sports, Fitness & Outdoors , Pet Supplies and Precious Jewellery.

 

Although large, this business is extremely sensitive, how do you make sure that the quality of the products is intact and is in no way compromised?

At the outset, all sellers listing their products on Amazon.in are required to enter an agreement to list and sell only genuine products. We further commit to ensuring a 100 per cent Purchase Protection for the shopping done on Amazon.in through our A-to-Z Guarantee. There are two ways sellers can list and sell products on amazon.in. There are sellers who list, pack, ship and deliver directly to customers.

In these cases, we don't have the chance to review the products. But should a customer, right owners, brand owners for Trademark and IP infringements bring the complaint to our notice, we will work with the seller to ensure that he either does a full refund or sends a genuine product to the customer.

Additionally, we have metrics in place to record counterfeit complaints, measure the size of the problem and mechanisms in place to control it, basis the learning of our global counterparts to further reduce the inconvenience caused to our customers. In either case, if we determine that the seller violated the agreement to sell genuine product, we delist them from the platform. There have been several instances where sellers have been delisted.

 

What would be the average items that the website is able to sell in a day?

As a policy, we don't share average daily sales.

 

Is there a particular product (category) that has a huge demand?

In the past 2 years of operating in the Indian market, we have seen an unprecedented growth across all departments including the usual suspects like Consumer Electronics, Books, Shoes, Watches, Baby Products and Apparels. 

 

Talk to us about your business rivals and if you think the category is getting somewhat crowded today.

We are a customer-obsessed and not competition-focused. Customers don't care about how much gross merchandise sales you have or whether you are the market leader. You don't go and shop saying "how much did you sell last year?"Customers care about what they can buy from us. Once we have the products that they care about, we focus on whether it is available to them at competitive prices in a fast and reliable manner.

We work backwards from customer needs and are focused on addressing those needs through innovations and new initiatives.

 

The same-day delivery option is what most e-tailers are taking to today, what would you say to that?

We have been consistently working towards providing our customers with a fast and reliable delivery experience right from the time we launched in India 14+ months ago. In line with this, we were the first ones in India to introduce premium guaranteed delivery services including the 'Two-Day Delivery' & 'One-Day Delivery' services for items fulfilled by Amazon.

We launched 'One-Day Delivery' in December 2013 (just six months post our India launch) on 100,000 products and today over 700,000 products are eligible for next day delivery across hundreds of pin codes in India. More than 75 per cent of our customer demand is already eligible for next-day shipping on products fulfilled by Amazon. We are the only company in India that has enabled such large number of products to be available for guaranteed delivery.

We launched Release Day Delivery (RDD), a service committed to delivering new product offerings to customers on the day of their release. With the launch of RDD, Amazon.in customers can pre-order and receive some of the most eagerly awaited new products at their doorstep on the day of release. The service launched with the delivery of Xbox One in 35+ cities in India on the midnight of its release day. We took this a step further by pioneering Midnight Deliveries i.e. delivering to customers at midnight - the exact time that products launched in the country. We undertake midnight deliveries for products whose launches are highly awaited by customers like Xbox One and iPhone 6.

Recently, we launched Sunday Delivery across 100 cities in India for residential addresses.  No one in India offers this at the scale that we do.

 

Tell us more about your expansion plans. Are there any new initiatives being launched at Amazon.in?

We recently set up our largest Fulfilment Center (280,000 sq. ft.) on the outskirts of Hyderabad. With the opening of the new FC in Telangana, Amazon will have 11 FCs operational across 8 states in India covering a total of over one million square feet space with a storage capacity of over 2.5 million cubic feet.