Amazon Trails To Flipkart In India

According to data published, Flipkart is leading the Indian market ahead of its competitors Amazon and Snapdeal.

According to recent news it is believed that Amazon Inc. has planned a heavy investment in its India operations for the next few years. The company is already growing at a fast pace in the United States but it wants to bolster its international market presence, especially in India. The online retailer announced an investment of nearly $2 billion (INR 13,500 crores) to expand its reach in the region. Amazon is looking to take on the homegrown rivals, Flipkart and Snapdeal, and wants to capture major market share than the two start ups in the region.

Despite of the fact that Amazon planned such heavy investments, Flipkart and Snapdeal have been busy in raising massive venture capital as well since the US retailer made announcement regarding expanding in India back in July 2014. Amazon has yet to penetrate its offerings in the Indian market. In the meantime, sources suggest that Flipkart is easily leading the market on the basis of mobile traffic. The data published by Similar Web for last year, it was reported that Flipkart is ahead of Amazon and Snapdeal in having the most mobile traffic among the e-commerce websites.

The Indian based start up boasted of having nearly 47 percent of the mobile commerce traffic last year whereas its popular Myntra app was second with having 16 percent of the market share. If the share of Flipkart and Myntra are combined to get an idea of their domination then their mobile traffic share touches 63 percent in India which is way more than half of the share in the market.

The Indian online retailer also claimed that it is also leading the race of total app installs in the past year. According to the firm, Flipkart app has been installed by more than 37 percent of the total Android smart phone base in the region. If we combine Myntra app installs as well then the market share would rise to 47 percent in total which again is nearly half of the share in total.

Amazon’s recent success whether in domestic or international markets is credited to its loyalty program Amazon Prime. The firm is benefitting a lot from its loyalty program which was initially started by Costco Wholesale almost a decade ago.

Apart from this, Amazon and Snapdeal also have their own mobile websites for the region which are more user friendly than Flipkart’s mobile website. It is believed that Flipkart mobile website can only be accessed using a Google Chrome browser on an Android smart phone whereas its Myntra is an online app portal only.

Ignoring all of the above facts, the online retailing giant announced in December that it has topped the charts for being the most visited e-commerce website for the September-October quarter, based on the data published by comScore. The figure was way ahead of Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Jabong until October 2015.

Regardless of losing the market status in a few months’ time, Amazon is expected to grow faster with its heavy investments. The company recently invested another INR 1,696 crore in India units.

Amazon Expands One-Hour Prime Now Delivery Service To More Cities In USA

Amazon one-hour Prime Now delivery service is expanding to more locations in USA with additional products of food and alcohol in the categories.

The multinational e-commerce business has been expanding extensively this year. It has made its Prime Now delivery service available in San Francisco and further plans to expand its services to Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, and San Antonio.

The announcement to do so was made on Thursday about the one-hour delivery service Prime Now. Customers in these cities can now purchase products such toiletries or everyday groceries from the website, and their goods will be delivered at their doorsteps within just an hour. This makes it highly convenient for the locals who live in mountainous areas. 

Prime Now is the fastest delivery facility ever. Customers do not have to go and visit stores but instead purchase items online and receive them in an hour. Amazon Prime Now is a beneficial service for customers because they can also save their fuel. The director of the service, Stephenie Landry, commented at a press release, “Customers love the convenience of one-hour delivery, and we are excited to expand in California, bringing Prime Now to the Bay area.”

The application is now available on Amazon app store for iOS and Android both, but the service costs almost $8 for the one-hour delivery per service. Free delivery will be provided to customers who would wait for two hours. The service will only be available from 8:00AM to 12:00AM all the days of the week. This service was initially launched in 2014 and gained popularity rapidly. It is available In Houston, Austin, and Dallas in Texas as well.

The online retail chain has constructed four points already so that the speed of the service to customers in Texas can be maintained. The services have various different features and it also give a vast variety of products that customers can choose from, there are item categories on smartphones in order to build better relations with its customers and secure the market from the competitors.

The promotion of the Prime feature is going very successfully for the company with the addition of so many locations. The company is also adding a restaurant and alcohol beverages delivery service in its category of good in Prime Now unlike others in the market. This will give a chance to customers for the first time to order alcohol to be served at their doorsteps. The company has already opened this attractive facility in major cities of USA including 17 metropolitan areas, such as LA, and it might go international with this service.

Amazons stock closed at $563.91.