Amazon to push hyperlocal app for Big Prime Day Sales

BENGALURU: In a first, Amazon is looking to leverage its hyperlocal Prime Now app in the top four cities during its Prime Day sale to offer ultra-fast two-hour deliveries to customers across categories, including smartphones and consumer electronics.

Started as an app focused on FMCG to compete largely with the likes of BigBasket, Prime Now has internally come to be considered as a ‘speed app’ rather than just a grocery app as Amazon India looks to take on Walmart-backed Flipkart and Alibaba-backed Paytm Mall.

The app is currently available in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. “Prime Now offers the fastest delivery on the largest selection customers need every day, like grocery, that they want urgently, like home and kitchen, and that they may desire to get fast, like bestsellers in consumer electronics,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

Amazon will offer 200 new launches across categories during the Prime Day this year, which will be held on July 16 and 17, and many of these products will be available on Prime Now for two-hour deliveries, said Akshay Sahi, head of Amazon Prime in India, but did not disclose more details. Amazon rebranded its grocery app, previously called ‘Amazon Now’, to Prime Now in May to allow Prime customers to access express twohour delivery between 6 am and midnight as well as access over 10,000 products across fresh produce, grocery and home and kitchen items.

Amazon also recently started offering exclusive smartphones, including One-Plus, Redmi, Realme and Moto G, and Amazon devices such as the Fire TV Stick, Kindle, and Echo devices on Prime Now, and claims to have seen rapid adoption in these categories with sales growing 10x month-on-month.

Amazon has launched 15 new fulfilment centres dedicated to Prime Now customers, thus sprucing its supply chain to fulfil orders for everything, from a toothbrush to a Kindle device in under two hours. The addition of Prime Now app to its Prime Day event could also be a move by the company to push traction on the hyperlocal app, which is still behind BigBasket and Grofers in terms of active users, as per industry experts. Anil Kumar, CEO of research consultancy firm RedSeer, said hyperlocal delivery can have a strong proposition for Amazon.