Amazon, Snapdeal, Paytm ramp up operations ahead of festive season

Ahead of the festive season sale, online retailers Amazon India and Snapdeal and fintech major Paytm have launched their own initiatives to prepare for higher online traffic.

Amazon India will hire over 90,000 short-term contract employees for its fulfilment and sorting centres and delivery stations while Paytm has also ramped up its touchpoints with merchants for payments by scanning any quick response (QR) code. Snapdeal is targeting most of its sales at tier-II and tier-III cities. 

Amazon India 

Ahead of its Great Indian Festival season, Amazon will be hiring short-term contract employees across Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune and other cities across the country. 

It will hire twice the number of seasonal associates compared to the last festive season, the company said in an official statement.

“This increased capacity will enable Amazon to enhance customer experience and boost its delivery capabilities to support the growing volume of customer orders during the upcoming festive season,” the statement added.

Amazon India has also ramped up its customer service operations and expanded its two storage centres in West Bengal and Maharashtra.

As part of a new strategy, Amazon India has granted advertising rights to sellers who do not market their products on its platform.

Paytm

Online payments firm Paytm is targeting 1.5 billion merchant payments in the upcoming festive season by enabling customers to make payments through its app by scanning any QR code.

The move will expand Paytm’s reach to another set of two million retail outlets from the current 14 million merchants, the company said in a statement today.

In August, Paytm had allocated around Rs 750 crore to increase the monthly active users of its app to 250 million and retail merchants to 20 million.

Earlier this week, the company had said it will invest Rs 250 crore in its travel business over six months.

Snapdeal

With a target of achieving over 85% sales from tier-II and tier-III buyers, Snapdeal’s festive sale will offer special deals on a wide range of products from Indian bazaars including products for home, fashion and fitness. 

“With the aspirations of smaller towns and middle-class consumers growing faster, we see immense potential in the market,” the company said in an official statement.

“India’s consumption is moving to $1 trillion with only 10% of this coming from organised retail. Snapdeal’s sale will provide an opportunity for the unorganized retail sector to grow faster too,”  it added.

Snapdeal claims it has over 500,000 registered sellers on the marketplace.