Amazon's Prime Day sales sizzle

Prime membership jumps more than 200% increase in the number of Prime members in India

Mobile phones to electronics to entertainment to even sugar — Amazon India managed to sell everything in its first-ever Prime Day sale. Although India emerged as one of Amazon's biggest Prime Day markets during the 30-hour global sale, the e-commerce company refrained from any ranking.

In order to bump up its Prime membership, Amazon has been offering everything from groceries to entertainment.

According to Amazon India senior vice-president and country manager Amit Agarwal, there has been more than 200 per cent increase in the number of Prime members in India during January to June this year. 
 

"In fact, in the run-up to the sales, we saw a phenomenal increase in member sign-up and it has increased beyond our wildest expectations. Not only in metros, we are also seeing the number of members rise in Tier-II and Tier-III cities," Agarwal said.

While the company has so far not disclosed the number of Prime members, estimates put the figure at 70 million for the globe and 10 million for India. 

According to Agarwal, all verticals have grown courtesy the sale, not just Prime membership, beginning from the recently started Amazon Pay to groceries to Amazon Pantry. 

"All categories are seeing significant double-digit growth. Top-ups increased 17 times over normal days. We saw five times more members paying for their purchases using Amazon Pay Balance. The percentage of orders paid using digital payment methods was the highest in the past 12 months, exceeding de-monetisation," he said.

Groceries is another area where Amazon pushes for growth in the hope that it will bump up the number of repeat customers on its portal. According to the company, more than 50 per cent of its Prime members bought groceries during the sale as well.

In a move that is expected to draw top dollar, the government on Monday allowed Seattle-headquartered online giant Amazon to open fully-owned bricks-and-mortar stores to sell food products in India. This is the first foreign direct investment (FDI) proposal for setting up food-only retail outlets that the government has permitted. It also happens to be the first FDI case to get an in-principle clearance after the Foreign Investment Promotion Board was shut recently.

In its January application to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the American major had proposed to invest $515 million in food retail over the next five years. Indian online grocery stores Grofers and Bigbasket may be the next to get a go-ahead for setting up food outlets, taking the total investment of the three players to $695 million.

While Agarwal did not disclose his offline retail plans, he said the grocery segment is growing rapidly for the company.

As for entertainment, the company said its original series, Inside Edge, was the most streamed title in a single-day for Prime Video in India.