Online retail gaint Amazon has launched a grocery delivery app for customers in the city, taking domestic players such as Grofers, LocalBanya and PepperTap head on.
The app, Amazon Now, will provide shoppers access to over 6,000 everyday essential items from local kirana stores and other grocery retail chains like BigBazaar, Reliance Fresh, Bharat Petroleum In & Out, Godrej Nature’s Basket and Food World.
Customers can have the products delivered to their doorstep within 2 hours or at a pre-scheduled time, Amazon said in a statement.
“We are encouraged by the learnings from Kirana Now – a pilot that we started last year in Bengaluru to enable customers to shop for their everyday essentials from the ecosystem of their local stores and get them delivered within two-four hours,” Amazon India Vice President Category Management Samir Kumar said.
Amazon has also enabled with two new delivery services – Express Delivery (two hours) and Scheduled Delivery offering.
The launch comes at a time when grocery delivery start-ups like Grofers and PepperTap are either shutting operations in certain cities or re-working on expansion plans to optimise costs.
According to analysts, grocery delivery may be a tricky area for eCommerce firms as retailers often operate on wafer-thin margins.
