Bangalore, August 18 2014: Global e-biz leader Amazon plans to make Hyderabad the base of its India operations, with 160,000 sq. m warehousing facility -- its largest outside the US, Hindu Businessline reports, quoting Director (Global - Real Estate and Facilities), John Schoettler.
The project will be completed in phases by 2018, he told the paper. This comes on the heels of an announcement by CEO Jeff Bezos that the online retailer had readied a war chest of $ 2 billion for India-based operations.
India's largest e-comm player FlipKart has also announced a $ 1 billion infusion mostly by existing investors.
And Snapdeal, another prominent Indian e-boz retailer has already raised some $ 250 million as part of its own expansion plans.
While desi or Indian players can be reasonably expected to gear up to take on the likes of Amazon and e-Bay, the opportunity for international players in the short term remains unclear since the new government in Delhi is yet to clearly spell out its policy on foreign direct investment in online retail. It's opposition to such FDI in the bricks part of retail trade is well known; but which way it will swing when it comes to web-based business is something the global e-tailing industry will be watching carefully in the weeks ahead.
Rumours are rife that India's best known superannuated business honchos Narayana Murthy of Infosys and Ratan Tata of the Tata group are planning personal investments in Amazon and Snapdeal respectively.
One thing is clear -- and aggressive pricing announced nightly on prime time TV and in full page newspaper ads, underlines this: the customer is king in all this pushing and positioning.
We aren't complaining!