Online shopping alert! Amazon eyeing tie-ups with brands to boost festival sales

E-commerce firm Amazon India is focusing on exclusive tie-ups with brands across categories to drive sales this festive season, Manish Tiwary, VP, category management, told FE. “Festive season is the best time to acquire new customers as well as retain the existing ones. Be it in categories such as mobile where we have an exclusive deal with Xiaomi to sell Redmi 6A, or BPL and TCL for large appliances, consumers will find a range of products on the platform this festive season,” Tiwary said.

According to Tiwary, as the traffic continues to grow on the platform, more and more brands look at hoping in onto the platform, while existing ones extend the tenure of the tie-up. For example, the tie-up with mobile brand One Plus is almost four-and-a-half years old.

Amazon plans to hold its festive season sale, the Great India Festival, in two-three parts. The first part will be held between October 10 and 15 during Navratri, followed by the second one during Diwali and another one before the New Year. Like last year, Prime members will be given early access to the sale.

As run-up to the sale, the e-tailer has increased storage capacity by 54% to 20 million cubic feet by launching five new warehouses, also known as fulfilment centres, in Gurgaon (part of Delhi-NCR), Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Vijayawada. It claims to have 3.80 lakh sellers on its platform selling 170 million products.

Additionally, the company is focusing on increasing sale of private labels. Amazon India currently sells a range of private labels including Symbol and Myx in fashion and apparels, Tenor in smartphones, AmazonBasics in electronics like mobile chargers among others.

For Arun Sirdeshmukh, business head of Amazon Fashion, with more than 80% of new customers coming in from tier-II and III cities, private labels play an important role in terms of being affordable.

The e-tailer will be exclusively selling Shoppers Stop’s private brands such as Kashish, Haute Curry and Vettorio Fratini, among others. Last year in September, Shoppers Stop sold 5% equity to Amazon NV Holdings, the investment arm of US based e-tailer for Ts 179.25 crore.

Amazon, which has set up Amazon festive home in Delhi showcasing its products, has also rolled out several payments options, including debit card-based easy instalment options apart from offering EMI via Amazon Pay – its own wallet.