Sharp rise in Amazon customer base in tier II, smaller towns

Work-from-home and online schooling enablers are in high demand, besides personal grooming, wellness and grocery products as more customers are getting online for their shopping needs

Guwahati: The Amazon.in marketplace has witnessed an exponential increase in customer base in tier II cities and smaller towns since the coronavirus-induced lockdowns last year, Pranav Bhasin, Director, MSME and Selling Partner Experience, Amazon India, said.

Work-from-home and online schooling enablers are in high demand, besides personal grooming, wellness and grocery products as more customers are getting online for their shopping needs since mid-2020, he added.

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In an interview to PTI, Bhasin said, “In the last 15- 18 months, we have seen a lot of customers move online, not just in the tier I & II cities but also in smaller towns. Today, 65 per cent of customer orders and over 85 per cent of new customers on Amazon.in are from tier II and below geographies.”

The Amazon.in marketplace is operated by Amazon Seller Services Private Ltd, an affiliate of Amazon.com, Inc.

Stating that customers across nearly 100 per cent of India’s serviceable pin codes are in their network, he said there has been a significant demand for personal grooming products such as trimmers, shavers, hair removal products as well as wellness products like weighing scales, BP monitors, etc, since last year.

Masks and sanitisers, personal health and sanitisation products are also in high demand, he added. Bhasin further said since the beginning of lockdown in March-end last year, high demand in categories such as groceries, work-from-home and online schooling enablers like laptops, phones, smart devices, headphones, furniture and consumer electronics, among others, have been seen. Grocery has been one of our fastest growing categories, he said.

He also informed that with onset of monsoon, washing machines have witnessed a 1.5 times demand growth compared to March this year, with more than half of the growth coming from non-metros and tier II towns.

On the size of the e-commerce market in the country at present, Bhasin said it is still in its early stage of evolution and accounts for just 4 per cent of the retail consumption.

“However, the sector is already transforming lives and livelihoods, and becoming a key contributor to the country’s economic growth,” he added.