"I fundamentally believe that the reason customers trust Amazon and Prime members trust Prime is because of the reliability of our delivery, speed for sure, and a great returns experience,” said Akshay Sahi, Director and Head of Amazon Prime, Delivery and Returns Experiences, India. Amazon will kick start its eighth edition of Prime Day in India at midnight on July 20 and will continue for the next 24 hours. “Prime Day in India has always been unique and different from Prime Day in the US or Europe. We're the one country which envisioned Prime Day as a true celebration of everything prime, not just another deals event,” Sahi told indianexpress.com. Sahi enumerated deals, product launches, and entertainment as the three pillars that Amazon has established for Prime Day in India. Each Prime Day comes with thousands of deals across various categories, including home appliances, electronics, fashion, and everyday essentials. When it comes to product launches, Amazon also collaborates with established as well as small and medium businesses (SMBs) to come up with new products. Similarly, with entertainment, each year on Prime Day, new titles are announced. "Prime Day promises that this is supposed to be the best deal of the year. This year we have 450 plus brands launching new products. Prime Day in India includes a significant entertainment component and we have made a concerted effort to be able to bring more and more great shows, and great music together at this time," Sahi explained. When asked about Prime Day 2023 sales figures and stats, Sahi said that he was not at liberty to speak about specific numbers. However, he said, “We expect every Prime Day to be bigger and better than the last one in terms of customer engagement, Prime member shopping, new Prime sign-ups, seller participation, and overall sales. We have over 200 million Prime members worldwide, with India being a large contributor.” On Amazon’s efforts to make Prime Day more accessible and relatable to consumers in rural and semi-urban areas, Sahi said that they have seen significant membership growth in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. “Amazon India continues to invest in creating great experiences and providing fast delivery and returns across the country. We serve 100 per cent of the PIN codes in India, with 97 per cent of those PIN codes having items available for two-day delivery or faster,” he explained. Sahi said that Amazon has partnered with telcos to increase reach and created options like Amazon Pay vouchers to make Prime more accessible. “We've also enabled Prime purchases through UPI and other payment methods to improve accessibility, especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities.” Tech innovations at Amazon According to Sahi, to manage the massive increase in orders during Prime Day, Amazon has invested heavily in its technological infrastructure and logistics network. During the conversation, he mentioned that in 2023 Prime Day witnessed almost 23,000 orders getting placed in a minute. He explained that to manage the large volume of orders, Amazon has expanded its logistics network across India. "Today we're sitting at fulfilment centres across 15 states, sortation centres across 19 states. We have 28,000 delivery partners who deliver things locally; we have almost 1950 of our own last-mile stations and we have the ability to manage 43 million cubic feet of inventory." Amazon has also invested in what Sahi calls "high confidence supply chains" to track orders at every stage of their journey, aiming to minimise errors and improve customer experience. When asked how Amazon stays ahead of its competitors, while Sahi didn’t directly address the competition, he instead emphasised that Amazon’s focus is on creating value for Prime Members and not on its competitors. "Prime Day is really about celebrating Prime members and not as much focusing on what's the index on your competition," he stated. At present, the e-commerce landscape in India is highly competitive with local players like Flipkart also offering similar shopping festivals. Amazon’s strategy seems to be differentiation through its bundled Prime benefits and focus on entertainment alongside shopping deals.
