Amazon Fashion, which competes with Flipkart Fashion along with Myntra-Jabong, has “the largest inventory (of products) with over 84 million units,” according to the company that has increased by 55 million units in its recent wardrobe refresh sale from December 2018. While Mayank Shivam — Amazon Fashion’s Director of Category Management declined to comment on the competition, he threw light on how this growth is fueled by India’s small towns and cities’ hunger and developing taste for fashion. Below are the edited excerpts of his interaction with Financial Express Online.

How is the growth coming from cities beyond metros and tier I? Also, how do you ensure that the offerings are relevant to them?

Close to 60-65 per cent of our total orders come from tier-II and tier-III cities. We ensure that the selection we have is relevant to all type of customers. Those in tier-II and tier-III cities are likely to find brands on Amazon that they had heard of offline. The delivery, refunds, and returns work the same way they work for those in metro cities. We also have the app in Hindi for areas where the English language could be a barrier. We develop a lot of content about creating awareness on latest in fashion as for many of our categories, customers are considerate about what are the latest trends in fashion, how do I choose my fashion etc. Also, we focus on affordability, accessibility and discoverability, which are geared for tier-II and tier-III towns, as we offer EMI on many products, two-day delivery along with easy returns etc.

How has been the scale in the fashion category currently for Amazon in India?

Fashion is among the largest categories for Amazon in India and also the fastest growing category in terms of acquiring new customers for Amazon India as one out of every three new customers start their shopping journey with Amazon Fashion. We carry among the largest selection of brands and have access to all pin codes across India. We give two-day guaranteed delivery to the top 200 cities in India and have a 30-day return policy for the majority of products. We are the largest growing market place in India right now. We also continue to be the fastest growing. There are third party reports that have been published earlier on this. It is not something we internally claim.

Any innovation coming out of India business that could be extended to other markets?

India continues to be the innovation place for Amazon overall. For instance, our sellers have the option of keeping their inventory either with Amazon or with themselves. For new sellers who wanted to have their selection Prime enabled, which allowed for guaranteed delivery, still wanted the inventory to be at their premises because they are producing it there or keeping it etc. This is called Seller Flex where sellers can keep inventory at their premises and still have guaranteed delivery to customers. This was done in India first and we are now looking to take it to other geographies.

What about engaging with social media influencers?

Engaging with social media influencers is already a large programme for us as customer engagement with brands is more online. Whether it is fashion bloggers or influencers, we are increasingly partnering with them. A lot of times there is a dual partnership between brands, influencers and apps. So social media influencers is a big part of our outreach.

Your competition has a bigger market share in fashion. Does that bother you?

We are not obsessed with competition. We don’t spend much time looking at the competition. It is not that we don’t care about it but India is a large country and we are just getting started online. We are focused on improving the customer experience. Everything else is a distraction for us.

How many sellers and brands have you scaled to on the platform?

We have a seller network of over 86,000 sellers offering 8.7 million styles out of which more 1.3 million styles are Prime enabled. Amazon brands have grown from 17 in number in 2017 to 53 currently such as Symbol, Myx, Arthur Harvey etc., offering selection in 51 product categories vis-a-vis 31 last year. We believe every customer is a fashion-expert and they must have enough choices to buy according to their preference. Customer can also ask Alexa about fashion trends and style tips. This is different from StyleSnap, which was launched in the US, where you can use an image to search for products on Amazon.