Amazon India has opened 15 new Fulfilment Centres (FC) for its app-only hyperlocal grocery delivery service Amazon Now. The new FCs are equipped with temperature controlled zones, to store perishable products such as fruits & vegetables (F&V), dairy products, chilled & frozen products. Besides this, the centres will store smartphones, laptops, kitchen appliances, other consumer electronic products, beauty products and household supplies.
The e-tailer said in its statement that these dedicated (to Amazon Now) centres, has close to 120,000 cubic feet of storage space for hyperlocal deliveries in key metros. The service is currently available in Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi and Hyderabad.
Amazon Now users can choose from two delivery options – Rush Delivery (two hours) and Same-day Scheduled Delivery, and the delivery is free for orders above Rs 600 in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, and in Hyderabad its above Rs 500.
After these 15 FCs, Amazon India now has 56 Fulfilment Centres in over 13 states with close to 13.5 million cubic feet of storage space. In September last year, Amazon India had opened its 41st fulfilment centre (FC) in Hyderabad which covers over 400,000 sq ft with close to 2.10 million cubic ft and is located in Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. The e-tailer has four other FCs in the state. In 2015, Amazon India had opened six fulfilment centres in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur to expand its services. At the time it had mentioned that 80% of sellers in India used its fulfilment services. In all, the company has increased its fulfilment capacity for sellers by 26% this year.
Hyperlocal grocery Delivery
In January, we had reported that the e-tailer has silently rolled out hyperlocal grocery delivery with the launch of NOW Store– on its online grocery platform Amazon Now.
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, which has a presence in 34 cities.
Note that 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.
