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In the run-up to the festival season, e-commerce firms have started strengthening their supply chain and product offerings. Amazon has added a new delivery station in Ghaziabad to ensure faster deliveries and Flipkart is revamping the platform with new sellers, interactive features such as a video catalogue, premium packaging, and a new autumn winter fashion collection.
Abhishek Maloo, Senior Director, Flipkart Fashion, told BusinessLine that Flipkart is working on adding new sellers along with getting new listings and inventory scale-up in the case of an existing seller base. This is being done in preparation for Flipkart’s Big Billion Day scale, which is expected to be announced soon.
Flipkart has also announced the rollout of the new fashion season with the Autumn Winter fashion collection on the platform. “Around 40-50 per cent of consumers that use the Flipkart onboards come through the fashion category and festive season is no exception. Of course, the scale of onboarding new users increases during the festive season, and fashion continues to contribute to a majority of them,” Maloo added.
Revamped shopping experience
Flipkart has revamped the shopping experience through several technology-led features for the upcoming festival season. These include image search to simplify and narrow down the product discovery journey for customers and to overcome vernacular and linguistic barriers, video cataloging, live commerce to provide an interactive shopping experience, and a new premium product packaging pilot, among other things.
On the other hand, Amazon’s new delivery station in Ghaziabad is its second largest delivery station in Uttar Pradesh, spread across 22,000 sq ft. “This station will enable Amazon to strengthen its last-mile delivery network and ensure faster deliveries across the city of Ghaziabad and in areas such as Bamheta, Chhapraula, Dasna, Harsaon, among others, in the lead up to the festive season,” said the global e-commerce giant in a statement.
Delivery stations are the starting point for Amazon’s ‘last-mile delivery’ in which ordered products are consolidated from fulfillment centers and sortation centres and delivered to the doorstep of customers in the surrounding area.
‘Faster and convenient’
Commenting on the expansion, Karuna Shankar Pande, Director, Last Mile Operations, Amazon India said, “This expansion will enable faster, convenient, and reliable delivery for customers. It will also create hundreds of work opportunities, including flexible opportunities for drivers with Amazon Flex and I Have Space partners in the city as we continue our long-term investment in infrastructure and technology.”
The new delivery station will also create new job opportunities in roles ranging from workplace health and safety, station managers, process associates, and Amazon Flex delivery partners.
These developments come after e-commerce firms saw lukewarm success in the recent Independence Day sales. According to industry watchers, e-commerce platforms have started focusing on profitability and so there has been a reduction in marketing spending, eventually impacting the performance of sales.
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