Chhavideep Singh
Source: Trak.in
Amazon is a United States-based e-commerce website for content creators, sellers and consumers and recently, the company has expanded its food delivery service called Amazon Food in India. Yes! Amazon Food is the company’s food delivery service that directly rivals delivery start-ups, Zomato and Swiggy. The E-commerce major has recently announced to have scaled its food delivery service to over 62 new pin codes in the state of Bengaluru, as mentioned in a report by Live Mint. The report also mentions that Amazon Food has partnered with over 2,500 restaurants and cloud kitchens.
It was in May 2020 when Amazon India decided to enter into the food delivery industry of the start-up ecosystem. Zomato and Swiggy are already up and running very efficiently and raising funds as they scale their business phenomenally. However, Amazon Food began in the state of Bengaluru.
We all must know about the unfortunate COVID-19 pandemic and the nation-wide following lockdown which completely disrupted the business ecosystem in India and drained the economy down the toilet. Despite this tragic offset, the government of India declared food delivery as an essential commodity because of which Zomato and Swiggy continued their business operations with fewer sales than usual but became better as and when the lockdowns were lifted and people started to ease into the new reality.
According to stats and facts shared by Swiggy, the start-up recorded over 5,500 orders per minute on 31st December 2020 and its customer base doubled by the end of the year. One can estimate the level of phenomenal growth by this figure.
As mentioned in a report by Live Mint,
Sameer Khetarpal, Director, Category Management, Amazon India mentioned in a statement that Amazon customers trust the platform for all their shopping needs across various categories and with the expansion of Amazon Food in Bengaluru, Amazon continues to offer its customers, unmatched convenience and value while being an essential part of their everyday lives. The company added that the platform has successfully partnered with some of the city’s top restaurants including local favourites and national outlets as well. Furthermore, the e-commerce giant emphasised on the fact that Amazon Food follows strict delivery and safety protocols with all their orders.
However, it is very important to note that the competition in the food delivery and online order space in India is ramping up pretty quickly as existing start-ups that have now established themselves have been raising fresh capital from domestic and global investors.
Zomato has recently raised USD 250 million at a valuation of USD 5.4 billion and Swiggy is right behind in becoming a tough competitive rival to Zomato.