American multinational e-commerce firm Amazon has decided to shut down its food delivery business in India. The food delivery business which was started nearly 3 years ago on a trial basis in tech city, Bengaluru would be discontinued by end of the year.
A spokesperson of the company told Reuters News Agency that the company has decided to discontinue Amazon Food as part of the annual operating planning review process. The company spokesperson also said that Amazon Food will be shut down in a phased manner without causing any inconveniences to current customers and partners.
In an email, Amazon India informed restaurant partners that they will continue to get orders from Amazon Food till December 29, 2022. After that, no restaurant will be receiving orders from the food delivery platform. The company also requested restaurant partners to continue fulfilling all the orders till December 29, 2022, in an efficient manner.
The company has also informed that restaurants will get access to Amazon tools and reports regarding the food delivery business, till January 31, 2023. There will be also continued support from the e-commerce firm till March 31, 2023, in issues related to compliance with rules and regulations.
The company spokesperson said to news agencies that Amazon remains committed to the Indian market and will continue to invest across grocery, smartphones and consumer electronics, fashion & beauty, as well as B2B offerings such as Amazon Business.
The e-commerce giant had earlier decided to shut down the online educational platform of Amazon India, Amazon Academy. Amazon Academy which was launched in the early months of 2021 aimed at providing online education-related services to students across India. It was also a time when online education and e-tuitions were trending due to pandemic-related closure of offline schooling.
Amazon India is planning to shut down Academy by August 2023 and announced that it will refund the full fee to those who enrolled in the current academic batch.