Amazon opens more warehouses to boost sales of large appliances and furniture

Amazon, the US e-commerce giant, is further boosting its market share in India by opening more warehouses to cater to the growing demand of large goods. The company opened 7 more warehouses specific for high-priced products such as television, furniture and large appliances taking the full count of its warehouses in the country to 34, much higher than the number of warehouses Flipkart owns.

Manish Tiwary, VP Category Management Amazon, said that “Our belief has always been that don’t expose customers to a half-baked product. When we started selling large appliances and furniture, we got the feedback that some brands weren’t doing justice. We realized that if we want to sell all types and sizes of products in this category, we shouldn’t do it with existing supply chain”. He also added that “It’s a massive market and the penetration is very low. The offline experience in large appliances is broken. We believe the potential for consumers to upgrade is very high. What large appliances do for us is that with customers who make this high-value purchase with us, the life time value of the customer will be massive. The next time the customer wants to upgrade, they come back”.

Amazon’s increasing focus on the large appliances category is a direct reaction to the fact that it is lagging the market leader Flipkart with a significant head start. Flipkart boasts of an independent supply chain for this business as well as an ownership in Jeeves Consumer Services Pvt. Ltd, an after-sales services provider. To claw back some market share, Amazon is expanding its after-sales service network for large appliances.