Even as Amazon scales up its newly launched quick commerce venture Amazon Now, its slotted delivery platform Fresh has continued to expand over the last few years – from 30 cities in 2022 to more than 270 cities today. Srikant Sree Ram, director, Amazon Fresh, talks to Ayanti Bera about the interplay between slotted delivery and quick commerce, and what has been driving its expansion. Excerpts:
What’s the rationale behind expanding Amazon Fresh, while the company is simultaneously investing in its quick commerce arm, Amazon Now?
Customers have multiple shopping journeys. The most prevalent approach is to stock up once or twice a week on essentials such as perishables, dry groceries and household goods. That’s where Amazon Fresh fits in, offering a wide selection and the best value. At the same time, in top cities, our quick commerce platform caters to “instant” shopping, where a consumer needs one or two products urgently.
Overall, our company covers three journeys — unique, one-off products from our large marketplace; weekly grocery and essentials through Amazon Fresh; and instant top-ups through quick commerce. Together, they mean customers don’t need to look beyond Amazon.
How has Amazon Fresh scaled up in the last few years?
Back in 2022, we were present in about 30 cities. Today, we serve more than 270. The growth is because customers see our fruits and vegetables as distinguishably better than alternatives, and we’ve built competitive pricing and daily basket-level cashbacks. Independent research highlighted that the most critical factors in grocery shopping are quality and savings.
How different is Amazon Fresh’s assortment compared to Amazon Now?
Fresh offers more than 40,000 products today, up from about 3,000-4,000 three years ago. Quick commerce, by design, focuses on the 8,000-9,000 most frequently bought items. So, while customers may not see much difference in categories like fruits and vegetables, Fresh has a much wider selection across groceries, beauty, personal care, pet products, and more.
Quick commerce has scaled up rapidly in the last two years. Do you see the slotted delivery model continuing to grow?
Absolutely. In fact, while quick commerce scaled up rapidly in 2023 and 2024, Amazon Fresh still expanded from 30 cities to 270 and saw very strong growth. Last year, in the second half, Fresh grew 50% year-on-year, and during the first two days of this year’s Great Indian Festival, we saw 40% year-on-year growth.
What are you observing about customer behavior across regions?
In tier 1 cities, customers are very comfortable buying fruits and vegetables online. In tier 2 and beyond, people are still slightly cautious about perishables, so we see stronger growth in categories such as dry groceries, household cleaners, and beauty products.