Changing the Way India Shops 'It's been exciting and humbling for us to see how customers have responded to Amazon's innovations'

Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon has been aggressive in infusing capital in the Indian e-commerce space, thereby locking horns with home-grown e-commerce biggies. The man who spearheads the India division, Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Head, Amazon India, rightly believes that e-commerce is today one of the most exciting spaces in India with a tremendous opportunity to grow. Agarwal has close to two decades of experience in Amazon and has played a pivotal role in establishing its position in the Indian market. "It's been exciting and humbling for us to see how customers have responded to Amazon's innovations. It has helped us consistently grow significantly faster than the industry and rapidly penetrate into more geographies," Agarwal told Entrepreneur in an interaction.

Speaking about unleashing technology and innovative culture in the Indian marketplace, he said, "As we are making rapid progress towards our goal of making e-commerce a part of everyday life of Indian customers, we are opening up market to many Indian entrepreneurs with our innovative programs such as "Amazon Launchpad' and "Global selling'. This in turn facilitates an important participation with key programs such as "Make in India' and "Digital India' that will help build the Indian economy."

Agarwal further explains that Amazon's vision is to transform the way India buys and sells by consistently offering the widest selection across an ever-increasing number of categories, to be able to continually increase its reach within the country and to increase eligible selection for next-day delivery. "We are already leaders in ever thing that matter to customers and are constantly looking at enhancing customer experience by working backwards and introducing new initiatives and programs on their behalf," he adds. Ever since its entry into the market, Amazon has come up with a range of product offerings for the Indian market. These include Amazon Classroom to impart online selling skills to new sellers, Prime Video Service, Fire TV Stick and more.

(This article was first published in the May issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here)