'Our Business Remains Unaffected By Quick Commerce'

Vice-president, categories, at Amazon India, Saurabh Srivastava, tells Neeraj Thakur that beyond quick delivery, serving a diverse customer base with a wide range of offerings is important and presents vast opportunities. Edited excerpts

The 2024 festive season is about to arrive. What has Amazon planned for maximising sales this year?

The festive season at Amazon started right with Janmashtami, Raksha Bandhan, Ganesh Chaturthi and now Onam, so we’ve been gearing up more and more with our festive sales.

Nearly 65% of orders for small and medium businesses came from Tier-II, -III, or lower towns, highlighting the broad reach of this segment.

This year, we believe we are going to yet again set new benchmarks. We have been gearing up by building the required infrastructure. We have hired around 1.1 lakh people across fulfillment centres, rotation centres, delivery centres, so that the desired product reaches right on time.

What trends are you noticing in customers’ buying behaviour this festive season?

We have observed several notable trends, with a significant one being the increasing preference for premium products, a phenomenon we refer to as “premiumisation”. This trend is evident across all categories.

Affordability remains a critical factor for customers. To address this, we offer options such as no-cost EMI, installment plans and attractive exchange values on high-ASP [average selling price] products, making them more accessible.