More storage capacity means more opportunities for business growth, say sellers on Amazon India

As we announce our plan to launch 11 new fulfilment centres and the expansion of nine existing ones in India, our sellers are excited; because this expansion means offering a total storage capacity of 43 million cubic feet to our 8.5 lakh sellers,

These new and expanded fulfilment centres will be based out of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, Assam, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, and will be instrumental in creating tens of thousands of direct and indirect work opportunities for people. While some of these fulfilment centres will be ready ahead of Prime Day, all of the sites will be operational ahead of the festive season.

With this expansion, Amazon India’s fulfilment network will be spread across a floor area of more than 10 million square feet –more than the land size of 125 football fields. This provides sellers the opportunity to offer an even wider selection and for Amazon to be able to provide a faster delivery for its customers. In addition, expanded fulfilment network will enable sellers to minimize their capital expenditure and focus on building the selection for customers, while Amazon supports them with the storage, processing and delivery of their orders.

Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog said: “E-commerce has played a crucial role throughout the pandemic by supporting people, small businesses and creating thousands of local job opportunities. I am happy to see the focussed investments by Amazon across Indian states in building and scaling the state-of-the art infrastructure. This will play a critical role in supporting MSMEs jump-start from the economic disruptions of COVID-19 pandemic and accelerate their journey towards being digital entrepreneurs. The future is digital & our MSMEs must become drivers of this growth. My best wishes to all the Indian MSMEs & Amazon for being committed to the agenda of building a dynamic, vibrant and resilient Digital India.”

Maulik Mistry, Co-founder of Pure Snacks Pvt Ltd, which manufactures Mojo Bar healthy snacks, is excited about this development. The Mumbai-based entrepreneur says, “With Amazon India’s larger fulfillment network, we will have greater accessibility especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Greater reach means educating our target audience about our brand and, in turn, expanding our customer base.” Mojo Bar has been available on Amazon India for four years now. “In our business, time is money. With more people moving to smaller cities from the metro cities, Amazon’s services will be all the more relevant in reaching the customers,” says Mistry.

Echoing this sentiment are sellers who wanted to go beyond tier 2 cities. Sachin Kumar, Senior Manager at Sirona, a Delhi-based brand which sells women’s hygiene products, says, “Earlier, if a customer from a smaller city ordered a product, it usually took more than a day or two to get the product delivered. But with Amazon expanding its fulfillment network, we are confident of fulfilling customer orders faster as we will now start sending our products to a few FCs of Amazon, from where it goes to the other FCs in the network ensuring quicker delivery. This will result in higher customer adoption for the new products that we are launching,” he says.

Tanmoy Joarder, a Kolkata-based entrepreneur who owns TJ Sarees, is another seller who is excited about the expansion. “With more FCs and larger FCs, we can store more SKUs in each – thereby reaching our customers faster. We get the highest sales from South India, so expansion of Amazon FCs is definitely good news for us!”

With the festive season sales coming up, Amazon’s fulfillment network expansion can lead to businesses expanding altogether. Suhail Pansare, Director of healthy foods manufacturer The Butternut Co, says that Amazon’s fulfillment network expansion will help his business as they get set to launch more categories and shift to Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA). When using FBA, sellers across India send their products to Amazon’s FCs and once an order is placed, Amazon picks, packs and ships the order to the customer, provides customer service and manages returns on behalf of the sellers.

Buildings across Amazon India’s fulfillment network are designed with state-of-the art technology and efficient building systems that minimize energy use. The buildings have on-site and off-site solar panels and are designed to be net water zero with multiple initiatives such as rainwater collection tanks, recharge wells to replenish water into aquifers, sewage treatment plants and ultra-low water efficient fixtures. Fulfilment centres are also being designed to make these work places accessible to people with disability as we continue to hire diverse workforce to make our workplace more inclusive.