Amazon’s billion dollar Indian investment
AmazonBusiness.in caters only to businesses including hospital, hotels and restaurants
Global e-commerce giant, Amazon has invested INR 3.41 billion in Amazon Wholesale India, the B2B wholesale arm of Amazon India, to expand market foothold and ward off major contender, Flipkart, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
Amazon Wholesale (India), which is in charge of Amazon’s business-to-business sales, received a capital infusion of INR 1 billion in December 2016. This takes the total capital infusion to INR 7.56 billion, with infusion from Amazon Corporate Holding Singapore and Amazon Inc Malaysia made in May, 2017.
A company spokesperson stated, “We are relentlessly focussed on expanding our selection and raising the standard for customer experience and online shopping in India. With Amazon Wholesale India, our vision is to build a place where businesses can come to find and discover virtually anything they want to buy online.”
AmazonBusiness.In, the official site for Amazon Wholesale India, is a B2B website restricted within its members. Currently, it serves businesses in Bengaluru and Mangalore only and deals in office products, stationery, household supplies, healthcare products, personal care, food, and beverages. According to reports, it currently accounts for more than 10,000 sellers in Bengaluru.
With this, the multi-billion company has appointed Shalini Puchalapalli as the new director of AmazonBusiness.in, formerly headed by Kaveesh Chawla.
The wholesale retail arm set up in 2013 owns and runs AmazonBusiness, which sells food and beverages, office supplies, FMCG goods and health and personal care products. It also functions as the marketing and distribution partner for smartphone brands such as Coolpad, Huawei, Honor, OnePlus and Xolo, which do not have physical presence or offline distribution channels in India.
Jeff Bezos, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Amazon had earlier announced a $5 billion investment in Amazon India to expand his company’s operations in the country.
“Amazon will invest $3 billion more in India. This is in addition to the $2 billion announced in 2014. We have already created some 45,000 jobs in India and continue to see huge potential in the Indian economy,” Bezos had said at the annual gala of US India Business Council (USIBC) in June last year.
An Amazon spokesperson stated, “India’s growing economy makes it a favorable business environment and we are hence focused on making optimum utilisation of the same. The aim is to make Amazon Wholesale India a visionary reality so that it continues to provide impetus to businesses that are involved with us and is operational virtually on our site.”
