Amazon India is expanding its partnership with India Post to facilitate customer deliveries across every pin code in the country. Under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed today, Amazon India and India Post aim to collaborate to harness the postal service's extensive last-mile delivery network, enabling Amazon to enhance the speed, efficiency, and reach of its deliveries, especially in remote and rural areas. India Post and Amazon will closely synchronise operations through seamless integration and knowledge exchange to maximise efficiencies, optimise resource utilisation, and explore capacity sharing across their logistics networks.
In the last 2-3 years, India Post’s footprint across Amazon logistics network has more than doubled with pickup points growing from 6 locations to 13 locations across the country. In another first, Amazon became the first e-commerce company to enable an end-to-end integrated cash-on-delivery solution with India Post. This along with overall improvements has resulted in an almost 3X increase in the volume of Amazon parcels being delivered via India Post in the past 18 months.
Unmatched last-mile presence
India Post, with its extensive network of about 165,000 post offices, is uniquely equipped to democratise e-commerce across the nation. Our partnership with Amazon represents a significant leap forward in our efforts to bridge the digital divide, enhancing e Commerce across for all citizens. Aligned with the vision set forth by the Hon'ble Minister of Communications, Shri Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, the government is focused on transforming the Department of Posts into a fully-fledged logistics service provider.
“Department of Posts acknowledges the importance of strategic alliances in our journey toward modernization and growth as a logistics backbone. We remain committed to providing technology driven, operations focused logistics services capable of responding to the evolving needs of the e-commerce landscape,” she adds.
Our relationship with India Post has been a pivotal part of Amazon’s growth story in India and has contributed to making e-commerce a nationwide phenomenon. By joining forces with this iconic institution that has served India for decades, we have been able to create new benchmarks in logistics and customer service repeatedly over the years.
An enduring collaboration over the years
Over the years, this India Post-Amazon collaboration has hit several milestones—from Amazon India becoming the only e-commerce company to serve Army-restricted locations through the Army Postal Service, to serving customers in remote locations such as Leh’s Nubra Valley, the South Garo hills in Meghalaya, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, among others. In celebration of its partnership with Amazon, India Post had also released commemorative postage stamps in 2016 and then again in 2023.
Thanks to the continued development of this decade-long partnership, Amazon can now effectively serve customers across all 19,300 pin codes and Army locations across India's nearly 165,000 post offices. In fact, Amazon’s partnership with India Post now extends to cross border trade too. Last year, the two signed an MoU to create an integrated cross border logistics solution that will expand the ecommerce exports opportunity to lakhs of MSMEs across the country.
Deliveries backed by technology
Elaborating on the partnership with India Post, Singh adds, “This aligns seamlessly with the government's vision to modernise and augment India Post's services and reach using cutting-edge technology and processes. As we elevate this alliance to the next level through the MoU signed today, I am confident that the best is yet to come. With Amazon's customer obsession and India Post's unparalleled nationwide presence, we are uniquely positioned to redefine the e-commerce logistics experience. We look forward to achieving many more milestones together in service of our customers and communities across India.”
Earlier this year, Amazon India also expanded its partnership with the Indian Railways to scale up the rail network's use for faster movement of customer packages. The two parties agreed to work towards identifying hub-and-spoke networks, priority railway zones, mega parcel hubs, and implement strategies for efficient movement from hubs to spokes.
Over the years, Amazon India has continued to innovate to enable an ever-larger selection for fast, reliable, and convenient delivery options for customers across the country; including those in the remotest locations. From hilly towns dotting the Himalayas to hamlets along India’s shores, Amazon delivers its vast selection of products to customers across the country. Amazon’s mission from Day 1 has been to transform the way India buys and sells online. From pioneering next-day delivery in India, back in 2014, the introduction to launching same-day delivery in 2017 for Prime members, we have continued to prioritise fast and reliable delivery. Globally, after reaching our fastest delivery speeds in 2023, Amazon, which is the country's preferred online shopping destination, has set a new delivery speeds record for Prime members, with more than 5 billion items arriving the same or next day, so far this year (2024).
