Does Amazon's entry in India a big reason to worry for Indian e-comm players?
Does it block the scope for new-startups to evolve in India?
Different people have different say over these questions but one thing is for sure, now Indian e-comm wouldn't be same anymore and the ambiance is set to change irrevocably.
For now, company is following marketplace model, because of FDI regulations. Amazon would only handle the logistic part for the sellers which the call it as "Fulfilled by Amazon" model.
E-commerce still accounts to only 10% of online usage and there are lots of scopes for growth.
Amazon India is only selling Books, Movies and TV Shows with over 7Million print Books across 200 Plus categories and over 12,000 titles in English and Hindi across Movies and TV Shows as of now but they are soon going to include Mobile Phones and Cameras to their list.
Indian market is dominated by FlipKart, and it would be interesting to watch how FK going to develop & enhance to compete with the Big Daddy of e-comm.
At the same time Flipkart is facing tough times on the other fronts too.With internal disputes within the company the top notches of the companies are moving out from Flipkart.
If we look the prices of products in Amazon and FK we could only see a marginal difference between the two and it seems like they are trying to attact the FK customers towards themselves, and additionally they have waived extra charges for delivery (for limited period) if you order anything less than 500 Bucks.
Whatever be the scenario between and within the companies at the end of the day the customers are going to get the benefit and we are soon going to see a good price war when Amazon would expand their business.
Market anticipations says that it would fail just like “ebay.in” because a foreign company cannot understand the needs and sentiments of Indian customers and it would be hard to draw customers from FK and other similar portals because they have created a trust with the customer and are time tested and Amazon does not have anything much unique to offer so that customer would prefer it over others.
Only time will tell whether marketplace model dominates inventory-based approach or not.
P.S: On the day of its launch I ordered 4 Books, just to experience what it feels like to order from Amazon, their delivery time and level of service.I got it on the second day of order(in Delhi) and it was sent through FedEx. After the order was delivered i got a call from Bangalore to give feedback. My experience was good,the price was same as in FK and the delivery was also quick.
