Amazon Prime Comes To India: A Death Knell For Competition?
If you haven’t heard already, Amazon finally launched Prime in India, yesterday. Amazon Prime comes with a one-day & two-day free shipping offer without a minimum order limitation and other exclusive member only special deals. It looks like Prime Video is also on its way to India and Prime subscribers will get free access to movies & Amazon original series in some time. Is this really a big deal? Aren’t most items already being shipped free of cost in India? No.
Amazon India & Flipkart have a similar free shipping policy; free shipping only for order values more than 499 & 500 respectively. Amazon India Prime price comes at an introductory offer of Rs.499 (original price being R.s 999). Amazon India Prime Free Trial offers allows you a 60 day access to the program. At the end of 60 days, you can choose to cancel your subscription or take the 1-year membership. Flipkart has its own version of Prime, called Flipkart First, but hasn’t been a runaway success so far.
How different will Amazon India Prime be as compared to Flipkart First? According to a study by Millward Brown Digital, Amazon Prime members have a conversion rate of 74% as against a 6% for non-members. Another study by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, shows 73% of 30-day trial subscribers pay for the full year access. 91% of first year members renew for the 2nd year. 96% of second year subscribers renew for the 3rd year. While all this data is based on US markets only, Amazon probably knows a thing of two about using Prime to build customer loyalty. An art that Indian eCommerce players haven’t mastered yet.
Will Amazon Prime have the same impact in India as in the US, what do you think? Love to hear your views in the comments section. While we wait and watch, one thing is clear, once an Amazon Prime member, you are less likely to shop anywhere else. Amazon Prime India certainly sounds like a death knell to its competition, may be a distant one.
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