Amazon is trying to up its grocery game in a big way. The e-tailer has silently rolled out hyperlocal grocery delivery with the launch of NOW Store– on its online grocery platform Amazon Now. The development was first reported by YourStory.
As part of Nowstore, Amazon delivers grocery like fresh vegetables and fruits, milk and other things from its partner neighbourhood stores of Amazon Now. The service is currently available in selected pincodes across four cities- Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. It looks like the hyperlocal delivery is only available on scheduled time. See the screenshot below:
The company had started grocery delivery service Amazon Now (then KiranaNow) in March 2015, which is available Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Besides, Amazon operates its grocery service online via Amazon Pantry, whuic has presence in 34 cities.
Note that Amazon is reportedly going to start selling local grocery produce online through its wholly owned subsidiary in India from March. Overall, Amazon has committed $500 million investment in food retail, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) approved Amazon’s plans to stock and sell local grocery produce online in April, 2017.
Crowded grocery market
Online grocers BigBasket and Grofers too has recieved government’s approval last year to retail food products manufactured and produced in India. However, none of the players has started selling locally made food products as of now.
Amazon’s direct rival in India, Flipkart is giving onlince grocery selling a second try with ‘Supermart’ in Bangalore. It had shut down its earlier service Flipkart Nearby in February 2016, nearly 5 months after its launch.
In a separate development, Online classified service Quikr is also experimenting online grocery business. However, Quickr’s spokesperson said that the company is experiment this and is still unsure whether it is going to enter online grocery space or not.
