Amazon sets up its third-largest India warehouse in Bhiwandi

E-marketplace operator Amazon India has added one more fulfilment centre (FC) taking the total to seven such facilities in the extended suburbs of Thane, Mumbai. Located in the Bhiwandi warehousing hub, the new unit spread across 2.7 lakh square feet (1.5 million cubic feet storage space) is Amazon's largest FC in Maharashtra and the third largest in India after Hyderabad (4 lakh sq ft with over 2 mcf storage space) and Bangalore (3.5 lakh sq ft with nearly 2 mcf storage space).

Amazon's current warehouse footprint comprises 14 FCs with over 6.5 million cubic feet storage space in Maharashtra alone and is likely to close 2019 with over 50 warehouses across 13 states and a combined storage capacity of approximately 25 mcf.

Akhil Saxena, vice president - India Customer Fulfilment, Amazon India, said the expansion ahead of the festive season will enable faster fulfilment of customer orders in Maharashtra and neighbouring regions. "The new FC gives us another 1.5 mcf of storage space wherein a variety of products offered by 70,000 sellers from across Maharashtra will be processed for online sales. Our deep investments in the state will also create thousands of opportunities for employment. We will create close to 2,000 direct and indirect job opportunities over the next year in this new fulfilment centre," he said, adding that the new FC will cater to customer demand for products in categories such as smartphones, consumer electronics, appliances, fashion and fast-moving consumer goods.

The company has been expanding its seller base in India and currently has 5 lakh sellers from across the country. The e-marketplace platform will continue to increase the number of sellers, however, the management did not share a targeted number to be achieved in this fiscal. The company is expecting upcoming festive season sales to be significantly higher compared to last year citing latent demand in the market.

Earlier this month, the e-commerce firm also unveiled its long term sustainable packaging initiatives wherein the company plans to eliminate single-use plastic packaging by June 2020. As part of this initiative, the online seller will use recycled paper cushions to replace plastic dunnage (air pillows and bubble wraps) across all its FCs in India by the end of the year. In fact, use paper cushions has already been rolled out across many FCs including the largest one in Maharashtra.

Additionally, its packaging material in the form of corrugated boxes and paper cushions are made using recycled content as high as 100% and is also fully recyclable. Even the plastic currently used in packaging mailers and bubble bags is made of 20% recycled content and is recyclable as well. The company is working on developing plastic-free alternatives for packaging mailers, bubble bags, stretch wrap and tape used in the packaging, thereby eliminating all forms of plastic used in its packaging.

According to Amazon India, currently it has less than 7% of packaging in single-use plastic. The company management is also working with certified recyclers to collect plastic equivalent to all the plastic packaging material used by the Amazon FC network in India starting September 2019. On the energy front, there are plans to use rooftop solar at its FCs across the country to generate a significant proportion of electricity required by its warehouses going forward.