“It’s a large part of western Delhi right now, but it’s a very rapidly evolving network, so you’ll very soon see it live across Delhi,” said Abhinav Singh, vice president of operations for India and Australia at Amazon.
The ecommerce giant will be scaling the service across these two cities over the next few months before expanding the network to other cities in the country.
On June 13, ET reported that Amazon had set up 10-15 dark stores to support deliveries in Bengaluru and plans to expand its footprint in the coming weeks. The launch came after multiple internal pilots.
Akshay Sahi, Amazon’s director for Prime, deliveries and returns in India, said that within Delhi and Bengaluru, the pilots will turn into full-scale operations very soon.
“Wherever we’ve kind of launched, we’re seeing tremendous responses from Prime members. And hence, you will see this expand fairly quickly,” he added without disclosing more details.
Amazon’s loyalty programme, Amazon Prime, offers members a range of benefits, including free deliveries, through a paid subscription.
The company’s move into quick commerce comes at a time when the space has seen aggressive growth led by players like Eternal-owned Blinkit, Swiggy’s Instamart, and Zepto, along with other new entrants like Tata Digital-backed BigBasket, Flipkart Minutes, and Reliance’s JioMart.
Amazon Now plans to have 300 dark stores in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, and Mumbai by the end of this year. Its rival in ecommerce, Flipkart, is also aggressively scaling its quick commerce services. By the end of this year, Flipkart Minutes plans to have 800 dark stores across the country.
ET had first reported on Amazon’s plan for quick commerce operations in August of 2024. The Amazon Now service is currently offering groceries, vegetables, beauty and personal care, home care, snacks and beverages, and meat, among others.
Amazon is also set to kick off its Prime Day event from July 12 to 14. For the company, Prime Day serves as an important mid-year sales boost ahead of the month-long Diwali shopping season. Initially launched as a one-day event, Prime Day has now been extended to three days.
On June 19, Amazon India said that it will invest Rs 2,000 crore this year to expand and upgrade its operations infrastructure, aiming to make ecommerce deliveries “faster and more reliable”. This, when horizontal ecommerce marketplaces are facing stiff competition from 10-minute delivery platforms.
Last month, Amazon added five fulfilment centres to its India network ahead of the Prime Day sales event in cities like Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Kochi, and Rajpura.
According to the company, it delivered more than 41 crore items the same day or the next day during Prime Day last year.
