Amazon.com, Inc. is
an American electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle,
Washington. It is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but
soon diversified, selling DVDs, VHSs, CDs, video and MP3 downloads/streaming,
software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and
jewelry. The company also produces consumer electronics—notably, Amazon Kindle
e-book readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire Phone — and is a major provider
of cloud computing services.
The buzz is that Amazon India plans to more than double its
headcount in logistics and delivery space in seven months as it pushes ahead
with its offer of providing shipping services to sellers registered on the
e-commerce portal.
"The delivery will touch 14,000 by July," said a
person directly familiar with Amazon India's plans. It currently has 6,000
people in this team. Another executive said the company will first increase its
headcount to 9,000 by March. After the hiring, Amazon will have the largest
delivery and logistics team among e-commerce players in the country, beating
Flipkart that has a 12,000-strong team handling about 85% of goods sold on the
portal.
"It will also provide significantly higher margin than
its operating margin," said Raghunath Subramanyam, professor of corporate
strategy and policy at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. "By
connecting with the warehouse and distribution network of its suppliers, Amazon
also reduces cost of storage and transportation, which allows it to become more
competitive."
Seattle-based Amazon started its India operations in June
2013, six years after Flipkart, and many believe the India unit of the US
global is "almost on par" with the home-grown e-commerce firm in
building infrastructure.
Amazon currently has eight warehouses across seven states in
the country while Flipkart has 13. Based on day to day business transactions,
Amazon decided to take man power from India in a big manner. It is very good
news to clean at least some percentage of India’s unemployment.