Amazon unifies grocery stores into single online store ‘Amazon Fresh’

E-commerce major Amazon on Friday said it has completed the integration of its grocery stores Fresh and Pantry into a single unified store called ‘Amazon Fresh’. The new store, available across over 300 cities in India, continues to offer customers unbeatable savings, a wide selection of products, and fast and convenient delivery options in one single online destination, a statement said.

“In February this year, we announced the integration of the Pantry store into Fresh in select cities…Today, we’ve completed the integration of both stores into a single online store called Amazon Fresh across 300-plus cities in India. Customers will continue to enjoy super value savings, a wide selection of products, and convenient delivery options,” Amazon India Director (Category Management) Siddharth Nambiar said.

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He added that customers will also get an upgraded shopping experience, with a dedicated app-in-app for grocery, and convenient features like personalised widgets and reminders. “This launch has allowed us to simplify the shopping experience for groceries via our dedicated Amazon Fresh app-in-app experience and sets us up to deliver many new features and enhancements in the coming months. Apart from offering great savings, Amazon Fresh will also reduce barriers to grocery shopping online,” Nambiar said.

He added that over the last 18 months, the company has seen a lot of customers move online. Nearly 65 per cent of orders and over 85 per cent of new customers on Amazon.in are from tier II and III cities, he noted. “Usually their first buy is a grocery product. We’ve observed an uptick in customers buying cooking ingredients…Now that we have integrated convenience and value into a single store, we see a lot of potential to attract customers with various shopping missions via our unified store,” Nambiar said.

In top cities such as Bhubaneshwar, Patna, and Lucknow, the company has seen a lot of adoption for online grocery shopping post-pandemic, he highlighted. “We will continue to build on our presence and quality of service in these cities to further accelerate new customer adoption,” he added.

In a regulatory filing, Amazon Transportation Services – the logistics unit of Amazon – said it has seen its losses widen to Rs 68.7 crore, while revenue from operations grew over 37 per cent to Rs 4,052.4 crore in the financial year 2020-21 over the previous fiscal. Amazon Transportation Services’ losses increased to Rs 68.7 crore in the financial year 2020-21 from Rs 48.1 crore in the financial year 2019- 20, according to Registrar of Companies filing – shared by market intelligence firm Tofler.

Its revenue from operations has grown 37.3 per cent to Rs 4,052.4 crore in the financial year 2020-21 from Rs 2,950.9 crore in the finanical year 2019-20, while total income was up 37.2 per cent to Rs 4,068.6 crore in the financial year 2020-21. The company, which is principally engaged in providing logistics and transportation services, saw its employee benefits expense increase about 37 per cent to Rs 430.2 crore in the financial year 2020-21 from Rs 314.1 crore in the previous fiscal.

Amazon did not comment on emails seeking response on the financial performance of the logistics unit.