People in India searching for books and movies online have a new option available to them. Amazon has quietly launched amazon.in, a new online marketplace for India.
Because of India’s strict Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regulations, Amazon can’t simply open an extension of its existing e-commerce business in India. Instead, the e-commerce giant is opening a platform for third-party sellers to conduct business over the web. Currently, the only products available for purchase are books, movies and television shows, though Amazon says they plan to expand the business to cell phones and cameras “in the coming weeks,” according to a press release.
The new site comes a little more than a year after Amazon launched Junglee, its first venture in India, a site that directs users to the shopping websites of third party vendors, much like Google Shopping.
The launch announcement highlighted two key programs to get the new marketplace off the ground: Selling on Amazon and Fulfillment by Amazon. The first is fairly simple: sellers can list products on amazon.in and handle fulfillment of orders themselves in much the same way things are handled for other Amazon Marketplace customers worldwide.
Sellers also have the opportunity to turn to Amazon to handle order fulfillment. All they have to do is get their products to an Amazon warehouse on the outskirts of Mumbai, and Amazon will handle the rest of the logistics pipeline once an order is placed.
“With Fulfillment by Amazon, we will do the heavy lifting for the sellers so that they can focus on core business functions like sourcing and pricing their products,” said Amit Agarwal, Amazon India’s Vice President and Country Manager in a press release.
This move pits Amazon against Flipkart, the current dominant player in India’s e-commerce market, as well as Snapdeal, which recently received a $50 million investment round led by eBay.
Previously on GeekWire: Report: Amazon taking grocery delivery to LA and San Francisco
