Amazon Prime product selection increased over 75% in 10 months

Key Highlights

• Amazon Prime that launched with free next day deliveries on 13 lakh items has increased its exclusive product selection by over 75% in 10 months.
• Discounts and exclusive deals on Amazon Prime helped garner more members.
• The company opened 14 fulfillment centres in India in seven months in 2017.

Flagship programme of Amazon Prime that launched in India late July 2016 was launched on Monday on Amazon.in’s website.

From the journey of offering free next day and two day delivery services available on 13 lakh items to offering exclusive video content and now a Prime Day only for its members to enjoy 1000s of deals on its platform.

Also Read: Here are the top deals on Amazon Prime Day

“We sweetened the programme by launching exclusive deals and selection for Prime members in October last year. We launched video in December last year which offers unlimited ad-free access to some of the best international and Indian content. We have invested largely into making video much more Indian. We just announced 18 new originals as well as regional content. In May of this year we announced Amazon Family which is programme benefit for young parents that gives them great discounts on diapers and coupons on household shopping” Amazon Prime Head, Akshay Sahi told Zeebiz.

Sahi refused to answer questions on number of Prime members in India or its percentage growth since last year. However, Amazon Prime membership was estimated to be around 50-60 lakh at the end of December last year, as a report by Live Mint quoted RedSeer Consulting report.

Sahi said, “With each benefit we continue to see more and more engagement and more happiness in our Prime members,” Sahi added.

Also Read: Amazon Prime Day brings special deals on Xiaomi Redmi 4 and OnePlus 5

The product selection kept solely for Prime customers has increased since Amazon Prime’s launch in India.

“At Amazon we don’t continuously keep working on making our elephants stronger. So to keep making more and more product selection available for next day and two day delivery to more and more places. Just since launch, over the last 10 months we have increased our selection by over 75%,” Sahi said

On asking how the company is equipped to deal with next day deliveries on orders made on Prime Day, Sahi said, “Through great preparation. We have constantly been investing in infrastructure, in logistics, as well as technology to ensure that we can meet our promises and meet the customer experience.”

Sahi did not answer questions on amount of investment made in the Prime Day sale however he said that in seven months the company opened new fulfilment centres which are warehouses set up by Amazon that are stocked by vendors as and when demand for the product increases.

“Just this year we have opened 14 fulfilment centres bringing our overall count across the country to 41 and all this is to ensure we continue to meet our promises not just on regular business days but on special days like Prime Day as well,” Sahi said.

Also Read: Amazon India offers deals on car servicing tools this Prime Day

On speaking of the challenges faced by Amazon Prime in the one year since its launch, Sahi said, “Scaling any program on a consistent basis, our technology, logistics and product teams have been working day and night to ensure we offer great benefits to our members. If I could highlight one challenge it is probably that you know we do a lot of stuff within Prime and it is sometimes tough for the members to understand all the benefits and value propositions in front of them.”

“We continue working on ensuring that we can communicate all these benefits clearly to our members so that they can really enjoy the programme everyday,” Sahi said.