Fastest $2 billion first: Amazon sales racing ahead of other ecommerce players

Though it started operations in India only in June 2013, Amazon India has already begun setting many records. The latest is a trump against its toughest competitor in India- Flipkart. According to reports, Amazon will be clocking in sales worth $2 billion (over Rs 12,000 crore) by the end of this fiscal. That makes it the fastest ecommerce player to touch that mark in India. Snapdeal had announced just a few weeks back that it had made sales worth the same amount. However, it took Snapdeal about four years to reach that landmark.

Surprisingly, Flipkart took nearly seven years to achieve the same. However, it has had a blazing trail of success ever since. This March, Flipkart is expected to have achieved sales worth $3billion, which has placed it clearly ahead of its competitors.

Why has Amazon grown the fastest?

It is important to consider the strategic timing at which Amazon entered the Indian market. When eBay wanted to kick-start the ecommerce revolution in India in 2004, it never really managed to do so. This was because the internet was just catching up in Indian cities and ecommerce seemed like a transaction that would only happen light years away. The real ecommerce revolution was launched by Flipkart in India, which basically launched using the Amazon model- by selling books and CDs before transforming into an online marketplace.

Flipkart had to work hard to familiarise Indian consumers with the idea of ecommerce, using incentives like deep discounts and cash on delivery payment. Snapdeal came in when Flipkart had already built the Indian consumer’s trust about shopping online. Amazon of course, jumped onto the bandwagon with mammoth funds, business expertise and technology. It was a combination of all these aspects that allowed Amazon to rise up the fastest.

The fact that timing is everything for an ecommerce venture to succeed is proved by the fact that eBay is nowhere in the picture when ecommerce competition is being discussed, though it was one of the earliest online retail ventures in India.

We think the same applies to everything related to ecommerce, whether it is an ecommerce company or the sellers operating on it, having the right timing can make all the difference in bringing in profits!