Amazon IHS programme has helped many small scale businesses in this pandemic with over 28,000 neighbourhood and grocery stores in nearly 350 towns and cities in India.
Surviving the business with Amazon IHS programme
COVID-19 outbreak disrupted the life of the population worldwide. With the rising COVID cases, a nation-wide lockdown was announced. This drastically affected small businesses. Consequently, several questions were raised concerning the survival of small businesses. Alike other small businesses, Jayshri Hodkar’s business was also facing the same problem. Being a single mother, depending upon her tailoring shop, a single machine in one room of a rented house. It was getting difficult to manage the finances and pay the bills.
She needed to do something to support her family in this pandemic. Jyashri took a very smart step and partnered with Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com Inc. for a small shop.
Let see how Amazon helped Jyashri in her business amid the pandemic.
Last-mile connectivity
Amazon delivery point partnerships with small store owners provide pickup and delivery services in which they deliver the product to the final delivery point across different cities within a 2-4 kilometre radius of the store. Amazon India’s store partner delivers between 30- 40 packages per day with a fixed amount per delivery. Jayshri Hodkar’s and many other small business owners survive the pandemic by converting the business into an Omnichannel network.
Opportunity for Online and Offline commerce
The above graph is reflecting the growth of the retail market by $700 billion by 2030, with many new expansions and with new job opportunities from a combination of online and offline commerce. India is having a share of 0.2% in global online orders and is expected to grow to 8.9%, according to the survey of consulting firm Technopak. Excluding Amazon and Ambani, Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart, and the Mumbai-based conglomerate Tata Group which has recently acquired an online grocer backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. are the nominees for becoming the king of the retail market.
However, this will not be a piece of cake as the Indian market is not monopolistic in nature. There is tough competition.
Reaching the heart of the local
Due to Amazon’s new programme in India, it is anticipated to be among the market leader. But it might be difficult because after winning the control future outlet Mukesh Ambani has made a strong foothold in the business. He has managed to make1 million small merchants as partners and converted numerous stores into a fulfilment centre. Ambani is trying to cover both offline and online market to go hyper-local and it is apparent that having a 410 million telecom customer base is an advantageous point over Amazon. The new national e-commerce policy to ensure equal treatment of all “sellers” and not adopt “algorithms which result in prioritizing select vendors” are also creating hurdles for Amazon and Walmart-Flipkart.
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