Amazon commence essentials and grocery delivery in Kolkata

Amazon India expanding its services in essentials and grocery under brand Amazon Fresh has expanded in Kolkata along with few other cities, the company said on Thursday.

The e-commerce major had also added Ahmedabad, Pune and Chennai in the second phase. It had already launched the service similar to hyper-local in cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR taking presence in total of eight cities.

"With this expansion of Amazon Fresh, the company now has more than 25 such Amazon Fresh centres, with a three-fold increase in processing space," company officials said.

"The investment in these specialized centres is in line with our long-term commitment to invest in India and create hundreds of job opportunities...

"We have ramped up our operational capabilities in cities where we already offered this service, and added 4 new cities ahead of the festive season to meet customer needs," Amazon India VP Fulfilment Operations and Supply Chain Prakash Kumar Dutta said.

The specialized infrastructure is designed to ensure safe storage of products in the category with freezer and refrigeration zones, special packaging for frozen food among others, the company said.

The online delivery of essentials and grocery space saw huge traction with new big players like Jio Mart, Flipkart and Amazon. Big Basket and Grofers are existing major players in this space.

According to estimates, online grocery is likely to grow at a CAGR (compound annual rate of growth) of 50 per cent between FY 20-24.