Amazon Pumps $190 Mn Into Amazon Seller Service; Gears Up For A Busy Diwali

Ecommerce giant Amazon has infused $190 Mn (INR 1,237 crore) into its Indian flagship firm Amazon Seller Services. This move may spell trouble for its competitors as the company strengthens its arsenal. Just five months ago, Amazon had invested $177 Mn (INR 1,155 crore) into its firm; bringing the total investment in the past 10 months to about $460 Mn (INR 3000 crore).

On reaching out to Amazon, an Amazon India spokesperson told Inc42, “We are very excited by our growth and continue to invest in technology, especially mobile, infrastructure and logistics to support seller capability in order to deliver value to our customers.”

According to the filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), Amazon Seller Service is raising this money through allotment of equity shares to its US parent company.

Earlier this year, Amazon Seller Service had launched Amazon Service Providers Network (ASPN) – a network of third party service providers, to attract sellers to join its platform. The network helps and assists sellers with the process of online selling and helps them with their online strategy.

With Diwali around the corner, Amazon has geared up its operations across all fronts. Samir Kumar, VP Category Management, Amazon India, expects the traffic to grow multifold this festive season. “With the launch of 8 new fulfilment centres (FCs) recently, we now have 21 FCs across 10 states in India; covering a total area of over two million square feet with a storage capacity of over five million cubic feet. This investment in fulfilment infrastructure before the upcoming festive season will enable thousands of sellers to take advantage of Amazon’s FBA services, grow exponentially during the country’s biggest shopping season and enable us to offer our guaranteed fast delivery promises to more customers.,” he said.

Amazon’s Service Partner program is one of the last mile models used by Amazon Logistics in India to provide quality delivery experience to its customers in the smaller towns and villages. The program empowers budding and  aspiring entrepreneurs in tier II & III cities. The program also uses the local distribution network provider for reaching remote villages. “We have now strengthened the footprint of this program to cover more than a hundred satellite towns and Tier II cities, including places like Havelock Islands (Port Blair), Chidambaram, Balasore, North Kolkata to cover important pincodes of Burrabazar, Shovabazar, and Central Avenue, to name just a few. We are relentlessly innovating to get our products faster and more reliably to our customers across the country this festive season,” he added.

Last week, the company also launched Amazon Morning Delivery, wherein customers across Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore can place orders as late as midnight and get the items delivered by 11 am the same morning. This service is available throughout the week, including weekends for residential deliveries.

Earlier this year, the company had set up a logistics company in India by the name of “Amazon Transportation Services Private Limited (ATSL)”. This move is aimed to capture the country’s fast-growing online retail industry. ATSL will manage the last mile delivery and will be one of the logistics partners for Amazon’s Indian marketplace.

The ecommerce war is raging on in the country, as players try to outbid each other’s move. In July this year, Flipkart had raised over $700 Mn from its existing investors including Steadview and others, pushing it to a whopping $15 Bn valuation.

Barely a month later, Snapdeal raised over $500 Mn in a funding round led by Alibaba, Foxconn, and SoftBank, valuing it at $5 Bn. Its existing investors Temasek, BlackRock, Myriad and Premji Invest also participated in this round.

Amazon’s business in the country is worth at least $2 Bn in GMV on the ecommerce side.