Abstract

Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer was betting big on India by making huge investments to build infrastructure. Amazon localized to suit the Indian market and the Indian consumer psyche. After three years of its operations in India, Amazon was the third largest online retailer after Flipkart and Snapdeal which had more years of experience and understood the Indian market space well. The competition in Indian online retail market was fierce but it offered a trillion dollars opportunity. In this attempt to capture the market the three large online retailers were offering deep discounts and high quality customer experience despite making huge losses. It remains to be seen whether Amazon which had put in place India specific strategies and massive investments can help it beat the competition can become the largest player. The case gives information on Amazon’s Indian strategy apart from giving details of the competitive Indian online retail market space. The case provides scope for discussing the challenges in Indian online retail market, the Indian consumer psyche and the infrastructure bottleneck along with giving scope for debating whether Amazon can beat the competition to emerge as India’s largest player.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the expanse of opportunities or the current market demand existing in online businesses
• Understand the online infrastructure
• Apply the ways a company can localize its business operations in India and implement the same in various business situations of going global in emerging economies
• Analyze the competitive situation, extent of rivalry and the forces that are acting to drive the competition (using Porter’s five force model to map the level of competition)
• Evaluate the market opportunities and assess customer value to build market share

Keywords

Localization,Eco system,Easyship ,Project Tatkal,Chai carts,Amazonbasics.com,Kirana shops,Flipkart,Snapdeal,COD: Cash on Delivery,GMV: gross merchandize