Amazon to bolster logistics and delivery to cash in on festive season fervour

Amazon India is gearing up for the upcoming festive season with a slew of measures to boost logistics, delivery, and order fulfilment capacity, Abhinav Singh, Vice President of Customer Fulfillment, Supply Chain, and Amazon Transportation Services, Amazon India said in an interview with YourStory.

Initiatives include strengthening collaboration with Indian Railways, deepening partnerships with mom-and-pop stores, and an agreement with India Post for smooth international delivery.

According to a Nielsen Media report commissioned by Amazon India, 87% of customers in Indian metros and 86% in Tier II cities are eager to shop online this festive season.

To boost logistics during the festive season, the e-commerce firm has decided to open up its logistics infrastructure to direct-to-consumer brands, even if they do not sell their products on the Amazon platform.

Amazon India has inked a memorandum of understanding with India Post to simplify cross-border logistics, facilitating smoother international deliveries.

The company has also strengthened its collaboration with the Indian Railways' Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation to ensure faster and more reliable deliveries to customers through dedicated freight corridors.

In 2019, Amazon introduced parcel wagons on the Rajdhani Express. Today, the ecommerce firm offers one-day and two-day deliveries in 116 cities, and the loads move across 100 trains. The company has also leveraged dedicated freight corridors, such as the 659-km Rewari-Palanpur route to expedite delivery.

In addition to these initiatives, Amazon India has introduced Amazon Air in the country, enabling the transportation of customer packages over longer distances in shorter timeframes. This 'middle mile' of the transportation network serves as a connective tissue between fulfilment centres and delivery networks, said the company.

The multi-modal transportation strategy, spanning road, railways, air, and water, ensures that Amazon can reach customers regardless of their location, it added.

Over the years, Amazon has significantly expanded its infrastructure and supply chain in India, including storage space, sortation centres, and delivery networks.

“We started with a few courier partners, and we had our own network, which was relatively small at the time. Over the years, Amazon's fulfilment centres have grown from 0.22 million cubic feet of storage space to 43 million cubic feet of storage space. Think of this as expanding from just two Olympic-size swimming pools to nearly 400 of them,” Singh said.

This ensures that even the remotest corners of India are covered. For instance, one-day delivery is now available in far-flung towns such as Mangaldoi in Assam and Mohanur in Tamil Nadu, said the company.

Amazon will also deepen its partnerships with mom-and-pop stores under the ‘I Have Space’ programme. Launched in 2015, the programme has more than 28,000 neighbourhood and kirana partners in nearly 420 towns and cities across India.

Under the ‘I Have Space’ initiative, Amazon India partners with local stores and business owners to deliver products to customers within 2-4 kilometres of their store, allowing them to earn supplementary income, said the company.