Demonetisation helps Amazon clock triple-digit growth: Amit Agarwal

Cashing in on the ongoing demonetisation drive across India, Amazon India is witnessing triple-digit growth in its sales as it has switched to various electronic payments platforms, said the company`s Vice President and Country Manager Amit Agarwal.

"When demonetisation was announced, we had switched off cash-on-delivery (COD) for 48 hours because it was very important for us to allow our logistics team to move from one compliant world to the new compliant world. Since then, we have allowed our customers to benefit from loading up their Amazon balance so that they can shop in a fruitful manner," Agarwal told BTVi in an interview.

"Customers can, right up to their doorsteps, choose to switch their cash payment option with the ability to pay with credit or debit card in one of the point of sales (PoS) devices that our logistics (team) carry with them. What we have seen is that the number of customers choosing to switch has gone up 10 times," he added.

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On November 8, the government decided to demonetise high denomination Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes across the country.

"So there is distinctly a dramatic shift towards electronic payment methods which is good in my opinion for e-commerce, for customer experience and for India as a whole going forward. And as we look at our business today, we have mostly returned to normal with very healthy triple-digit growth rates year-on-year and we`re very excited," Agarwal said.

He said that when the e-commerce company had switched off COD, sales got impacted as they were not letting the customers shop in lieu of cash. "But since then, as we have enabled these other services, we are mostly normal and we are seeing triple-digit growth rates."

The company has more than 95 million products now on its website with more than 1.8 million products eligible for next-day guaranteed delivery.

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