Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, is going on the offensive in India. Trying to take out two of his biggest competitors, who are currently struggling in the current market, Bezos has been ploughing money into an ever-expanding online market.
While the e-commerce market in India may only be about one tenth of the size of America’s currently, this interesting move by the Amazon CEO could be a sign of bigger things to come. Around $2 billion was invested back in summer 2014 and a further $3 billion announced earlier this month, proving that Bezos is in it for the long haul.
With Indian shoppers preferring cheaper prices to anything else, Amazon has a real challenge ahead of them to dominate the e-commerce market. Their rivals, Snapdeal and Flipkart, are both aware that the Indian market is going to be an important one in the future. However, they all also know how challenging it is to crack. As more and more Indian consumers invest in smartphones, the e-commerce market is set to grow. However, if Amazon doesn’t undercut their competition – or invest in some seriously impressive online marketing – then they could lose out on a valuable slice of that pie.
Bezos will be keen to avoid the mistakes made when trying to crack the Chinese market; something which he admits didn’t go as well as he had hoped. The issue, he told press, was that they didn’t focus on “local market customization” and simply went for the same strategy that had worked in other countries.
With all of this money being ploughed into Amazon’s expansion in the Indian market, competitors will be keeping a close eye on Bezos’ next move. Could the world’s largest e-commerce company soon dominate India too?
