Amazon goes festive-happy; introduces card-less EMI, bets big on smaller cities

Amazon is gearing up for the festive season in style. The e-retail portal has increased its product inventory to 172 million this festive season as compared to 169 million last year, ventured into daily needs with Pantry – which they say is cheapest way to buy groceries in any city, and is delivering to nearly 99 per cent pin codes across the country.

And it doesn’t stop there. The group recently tied up with space stylists and designers Amber Singh Tikari and Preeti Subhash, to set up a ‘Amazon Festive Home’ in New Delhi’s Defence Colony. Furnished completely with products from Amazon, over a span of three weeks, the house was the brand’s first ‘physical display’ in the country.

Designed for the announcement of its annual Festive Sale (that began on Tuesday for Prime Members, and will be open to all customers from October 10 - 15), the two-floor abode was set up like a fully-functional home, complete with groceries, apparel, electronics, and even fresh flowers - a total of 1600 products from the website.

The house also showcased the recently launched Echo Dot, Echo Plus, Echo Show smart speakers, Echo Sub sub woofer and Echo Input.

Talking about the idea behind the house, Manish Tiwary, Vice President – Category Management, Amazon India, said, “We never really manage to scan through 170 million products on the website, so we decided why not showcase the range how it’s meant to be used.”

But ask him, if an experience centre is on the cards, and he’ll say ‘no’.

While they may not have any plans of venturing into the brick-and-mortar model in the country, they are going all out to make India happy. In a bid to cater to a wider audience, the company recently launched a Hindi version of the website and an option of Amazon Pay EMI for people who don’t have credit and debit cards.

Elaborating on this scheme, Tiwary said, “As our customer-base grew, we realised that enough people don’t have credit cards. So, we’ve tied up with banks to introduce EMIs on debit cards.”

And recognising the market that is not comfortable using cards, the e-portal also launched an EMI option on its site going up to 6 months for a maximum amount of Rs 60,000.

While these initiatives are aimed at increasing traffic from across the country, a major part of the customers come online from smaller cities.

“What is really surprising is the number of customers who are coming from small cities. As you move away from the metropolitans, the choices in physical stores get restricted, hence more buyers turn to digital spaces.

“There are more and more sellers from smaller towns too,” Tiwary says about the market outside of the metropolitans.

Substantiating with an example, he explains, “The Kota saree weavers see an online see growth of upto 100 times on Diwali.”

Another hot-selling item, apart from electronics, during this season is gold. “We normally see a spike is always in gold jewellery and coins during Dhanteras.”

And, this Diwali as it amps up its festive armour, gold is just what the e-commerce giant is aiming for.