NEW DELHI: E-commerce giant Amazon wants to do in India what
Alibaba did in China. Amazon's India head Amit Agarwal on Tuesday met telecom
and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and urged him to allow the use of new
technologies such as real-time tracking and monitoring devices on the India
Post network to develop a delivery mechanism based on smart logistics.
The government has sought a detailed proposal from Amazon,
to which it will respond, a person familiar with the details of the meeting
told ET. Amazon wants to leverage an improved India Post network to ramp up its
delivery mechanism to within 24 hours anywhere within the country.
Agarwal was accompanied for the meeting by Monique Meche,
Amazon's vicepresident for international public policy. In an emailed response
to ET's query, Amazon said that it is "looking for ways to deepen"
its relationship with the Indian postal service which started last year. It
currently uses the Indian postal services as a delivery channel, but it is
looking to deepen this further, in line with what Alibaba did in China.
Alibaba was the first e-commerce company to tie-up with a government
postal agency in China. Right before it hit the capital markets with a
multi-billion dollar issue, Alibaba tied up with China Post to share
warehouses, processing centres and delivery resources, all part of a smart
logistics network providing easier and faster delivery services to online
sellers. Prasad also discussed prospects for pushing trade and commerce in
rural parts of the country in a big way and how e-commerce websites such as
Amazon could play a big part in giving a platform to small-time retailers and
entrepreneurs in the hinterland through its market place models.
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