Amazon may be following the recent example set by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The company’s India head, Amit Agarwal, met with the country’s telecom and IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, last Tuesday to discuss the potential implementation of smart technology that could allow monitoring devices and real-time tracking on the India Post network to improve Amazon’s delivery functions in the country.
Through this possible new partnership, Amazon aims to extend its presence to the deeper parts of India where only the India Post has service. This could help enable the company to hold up more strongly against the current competition in the emerging Indian e-commerce market – namely, Flipkart, Snapdeal and eBay.
Amazon aims to be able to guarantee 24-hour delivery for packages shipping anywhere in India. The company is making this effort in light of Alibaba’s recent partnership with the China Post to ensure faster and more efficient delivery; the company now shares warehouses and delivery resources with the government postal agency.
In addition to discussing a partnership of sorts between Amazon and the India Post, Prasad and Agarwal talked about ways to boost trade and commerce in more rural areas of India. They also discussed the role e-commerce sites like Amazon could play in giving smaller retailers opportunities to sell their products on the site.
