If there is a market, Amazon is either in it, or about to enter it. Having said that, the newest entry to Amazon India’s portfolio Food Delivery. Coming to give Swiggy and Zomato a run for their money is Amazon Food, which has been launched in Bengaluru and will probably make its way to the entire country very soon. The platform will launch on Amazon’s Prime Now app, which, for the time being, only provides services in select cities.
The company has wanted to launch the platform for a long time, but found nothing but bad luck. When Amazon was finally ready to go ahead with the launch in March, COVID 19 happened, which pushed the launch date even further. But now, Amazon is done waiting. For now, the service is only available in select areas in Bengaluru. These include Bellandur, Haralur, Marathalli and Whitefield.
This is mainly because the Indian market is different from say the U.S., where the average order costs about $33, as opposed to the $4 it costs for the former. Thus, profitability is a long way down the road for any of these companies. Amazon Food will also reportedly charge only about 10-15% of a food order from restaurants, which is almost half of what Swiggy and Zomato do. This would allow the company to provide better discounts, but also make it harder to reach profitability. But then, when you have Amazon’s resources to back you, reaching profitability may not be the biggest of initial concerns.
