BENGALURU: Amazon India is expanding its offline presence in the country as it looks to further localise its offering and bring on board customers who are still reluctant to shop online. The e-tailer has tied up with Vodafone India, the country’s second-largest telecom operator by customers, to provide a touch-and-feel experience of smartphones like One-Plus 3, which sell exclusively on the platform.
Amazon India and Vodafone have started pilots of this service in Bengaluru, across 40 stores owned by the telecom major. The tie up with Vodafone follows the expansion of Amazon’s assisted shopping programme, called Udaan, to over 1,000 outlets in tier II and III cities across the country.
While Vodafone declined to comment to an emailed query, an Amazon India spokesperson confirmed the development.
As part of the tie-up, each Vodafone store now has a display case with mobile phones listed on Amazon and a product specialist trained by the etailer. Customers can try out phones, especially as several smartphones are now exclusively launched and sold on Amazon India without any offline presence.
Customers can order the product online from the store, and also come back to it for any post-purchase help.
While still in a pilot stage, the project is likely to be rolled out across the country. There are about 10,000 Vodafone stores of different sizes across India, giving Amazon access to a wide network.
Besides expanding its offline presence, the move will also strengthen Amazon’s presence in the key smartphone space where it has been catching up on rival Flipkart, snagging exclusive tie ups with Lenovo K4 Note, Redmi Note 3, One-Plus, the Coolpad range and Moto G4 Plus. Smartphones, which are part of the consumer electronics category, form the largest share of gross merchandise value for online retailers in India.
According to Amazon, the idea behind this pilot is to acquire customers who are still “hesitant to shop online”.
“With an aim to acquire incremental set of customers who are not yet shopping online, we are focusing on providing them with opportunities to experience the benefits of shopping on Amazon.in and build trust in the brand,” Arun Srinivasan, category leader of consumer electronics at Amazon India, said in an emailed statement.
Flipkart also opened 20 experience stores across technology parks in the country last year, where customers can pick up their orders besides getting a touch and feel of products selling on the online marketplace.
Source: Economic Times