Amazon launches Junglee.com in India

Amazon.com has decided to launch an advertising service of products where it showcases various products and their prices, as listed on other e-commerce websites in India. The website is called Junglee.com.

India is the third largest e-commerce market, right after US and China. So it comes as no surprise that Amazon.com, the largest shopping website in the world, have been more than keen to enter the Indian market for a while. It's also been rumored that Amazon was to set up a facility in Hyderabad with over 3,000 employees.

Since 100% FDI is currently not allowed in India, Amazon.com has decided to launch an advertising service of products where it showcases various products and their prices, as listed on other e-commerce websites in India. The website is called Junglee.com.

"You cannot buy directly from Junglee. Junglee puts you in touch with sellers by directing you to their websites, displaying their customer service phone numbers and providing their physical store locations to help you buy the products directly from sellers."

It is interesting to note that, unlike Amazon.com, Junglee aims to pit the smaller e-commerce websites against each other and not sell products themselves. The idea seems to lure the players who are too small to compete against incumbents like Flipkart, InfiBeam and LetsBuy and would stand to get great link and advertising boost by signing up on Junglee.com. Currently, Junglee doesn't charge the e-commerce websites for listing. However, once the websites are hooked onto the clicks they get off Junglee, it'd be too late to back out even if Junglee starts charging a fee for all the sales, or even clicks.

As for the smaller e-commerce sites that have listed themselves on Junglee, it'd do them a world of good if they buckled up their services and provide the kind of customer satisfaction Flipkart is famous for.