Amazon India sees grocery and household service as growth driver

Kolkata: Online retail giant Amazon India expects the consumables category to be the growth driver in future for the retailer, a top company official said on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_2621582” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] “Overall market segment is big. I think it (consumables category) continues to be a growth driver for us and it will continue to be one of the fastest growing categories,” said Saurabh Srivastava, the retailers Director for Category Management FMCG. “Last year, the FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods) consumer business grew by 165 percent on a year-on-year basis,” Srivastava added. The online retailer was focusing on providing biggest possible selections, comparative prices and fast and reliable delivery which were working for the retailer, he said. With the expansion of Amazon Pantry for grocery and household service to 29 cities, the retailer was looking at expansion in smaller cities too. “Out of the 29, some are relatively smaller cities. Top cities are covered. Now, the expansion is going to happen more in smaller cities,” Srivastava said, adding that slightly more than 50 percent of sales in FMCG comes from Tier-II and -III cities. The online retailer has 27 warehouses across 10 states. In order to ensure fast and reliable delivery, investments are going in to strengthen the capabilities, he added. The consumables category has seen a phenomenal growth over the past three years and witnessed an overall growth of above 250 percent in consumer demand in the last year and a half, he said. The selection in the category presently stands at over 19 lakh products and in the last one year, the selection has grown over 500 percent with nearly 9,000 sellers selling under the FMCG category on the online marketplace.