Amazon Now offers grocery and everyday essentials to customers in Delhi and Mumbai

Amazon India has announced Amazon Now, a 2-hour delivery service for everyday essential household items. The service was officially announced on 19 December where customers can shop for a variety of items including groceries, fruits, vegetables, frozen food items and more from local stores including Hypercity, Modern Bazaar, Easy Day, BigBazaar, SRS, my247market.com. The products can delivered to a customer’s doorstep within 2 hours or at a pre-scheduled time. Apart from the Amazon India website, customers can also download the AmazonNow Android app from the Play Store to shop from the smartphones. Amazon says that the app will arrive on other platforms soon. The AmazonNow app allows customers to search and choose from a selection of products across categories including snacks, beverages, cooking staples, beauty, personal care and household basics. The service comes with two delivery options; Express Delivery in which products are delivered within 2 hours and Scheduled Delivery where customers can set a pre-scheduled time for the delivery. Orders priced above Rs.350 will be delivered free of charge while anything lower than Rs.350 will have a delivery charge of Rs 29 for Scheduled Delivery and Rs 49 for Express Delivery. As a launch promotion in the Delhi and Mumbai, Amazon has said there will be no minimum order to get the free delivery. “Our aim is to delight our customers with the best selection and pricing across our platforms along with a delightful delivery experience. And one such offering – AmazonNow has witnessed an amazing uptake by customers in Bangalore. The positive response prompted us to expand to Delhi and Mumbai, to be able to service our customers in these cities too and enable them to shop for their everyday essentials or over 5000 products from the ecosystem of their local stores and get them delivered within two-four hours,” said Saurabh Srivastava, Category leader, Amazon India. With this launch, Amazon India is directly competing with established players like Big basket and Grofers. Recently it launched Amazon Prime Video for Indian customers at a small fee of Rs 499 for one year which includes Amazon Prime membership.