Amazon on Thursday said it is setting up five more warehouses in as many cities including Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Mumbai, as the global e-tailing giant looks to strengthen its delivery capabilities amid intense competition from rivals like Flipkart.
With the addition of these new facilities, Amazon will have 67 fulfilment centres (FCs) in 13 states, with a total storage capacity of over 20 million cubic feet, it said in a statement.
“These new FCs will be set up in Bangalore, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Vijayawada and Kolkata to support increased customer and seller demand from these regions,” it added.
The company said these FCs will be fully operational before the festive season of 2018 but didn’t disclose any investment details.
FCs are warehouses where sellers can stock their inventory. They can save money by replacing their upfront capital expense with low variable cost and pay only for the storage space they use and the orders Amazon fulfils.
“With the addition of this expanded infrastructure, we will be able to offer an even better Prime experience to our customers,” Akhil Saxena, Vice President Customer Fulfillment, Amazon India said.
Amazon.in’s network of FCs will enable tens of thousands of small and medium businesses to fulfil their orders in a cost-efficient manner, he added.
Currently, over 40 million products are available for immediate shipping through the network of Amazon’s FCs in India, the statement said.
Amazon, which has committed investment of US $5 billion, has been pumping in funds to expand infrastructure and technology platform in the country.
Amazon India said it will increase its storage capacity this year by 1.5 times to 20 million cubic feet, over 13.5 million cubic feet last year, to fulfill the rapidly expanding demand
Recently, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had said Amazon India is the fastest growing marketplace in the country.
