Amazon Launches Online Shopping Site for India
Online retailing giant Amazon on Thursday entered India with the launch of its shopping website junglee.com, in a major boost to the country's rapidly-growing e-commerce business.
The website offers 12 million products across 25 categories -- including books, movies, mobile phones, cameras, toys and clothing -- besides its best-selling Kindle e-book reader, the company said.
"We are excited to give customers in India a single online starting point where they can shop a wide selection of products sold by local and global retailers," Amit Agarwal, vice president of Amazon.com, said in a statement.
The website allows customers to compare prices but purchases will have to be made through a network of third-party suppliers.
Amazon comes to the country at a time when Indians are shopping online more than ever before through popular outlets like bookstore giant Flipkart and the Nasdaq-listed travel portal MakeMyTrip.
Amazon said last month it was in the process of setting up its first warehouses in India, which would make shipments faster and cheaper.
E-commerce business is set for a boom in the country of more than 1.2 billion people, where incomes are rising but the use of computers, Internet and online shopping is still low.
Of India's estimated 60 million Internet users, only about ten million shop online.
India's government earlier this month allowed foreign "single-brand" retailers to open 100-percent owned shops, but has said that it will continue to block the entry of supermarkets.
India's retail sector is valued at $550 billion as of December last year, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation, which was set up by India's commerce ministry and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/28743 |