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Ahead of the upcoming flagship festival season, e-commerce major Amazon India is readying itself for a pitched battle with nearest rival Flipkart.
The e-tailer’s ammunition include a variety of discounts, EMI offers and, most importantly, a set of exclusive tie-ups and launches, especially in the large appliances category.
‘Large appliance’ is an important focus area for the company, with 400 per cent year-on-year growth driven by ACs, washing machines, TVs and refrigerators.
The category, sources said, is the third largest for Amazon India in terms of value. Mobiles and consumer electronics followed by fashion are the two other dominant categories.
Both Flipkart and Amazon have scheduled their flagship festival season sales in the fourth week of September. Amazon India’s Great Indian Festival Sale starts is from September 21 to 24. Flipkart’s starts a day earlier (September 20-24).
According to Kaveesh Chawla, Director, Category Leadership, Amazon India, the number of exclusives for the sales have more than doubled to 70 this time from the previous year’s 31.
Amazon India has an exclusive tie-up with BPL across categories such as TVs, washing machines and microwaves. During the sales season in August, Amazon had around 60 exclusive launches which saw a good response, Chawla added.
“We are neck to neck with our largest rival in the large appliance category. We, however, were a late starter in the segment,” he told BusinessLine .
The e-tailer is also offering installation services for large appliances. Installation will be carried out by the respective brands or by Amazon itself. The services are available in 200-odd cities of which 40 are catered to by Amazon.
No-cost offersThe company is further sweetening offers during the festival season by exploring ‘no-cost’ EMI offers. According to Chawla, the last few sales have seen a good traction for no cost EMI transactions.
EMI accounts for one third of the transactions.
“Keeping this in mind, we have expanded our no-cost offers to credit cards of several banks,” he said. The previous tie-up was with a financial service company.
Specific care is also being taken to speed up deliveries. Deliveries generally vary between the next day (of placing the order) to 3-4 days.
The company has set up 12 fulfilment centres over the past one year, catering exclusively to large appliances.
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