“We believe technology plays a critical role at every stage of fresh supply chain”: Amazon India's Harsh Goyal

“We believe technology plays a critical role at every stage of fresh supply chain”: Amazon India's Harsh Goyal

Grocery is a massive market and various formats will co-exist to serve different consumer needs.

Harsh Goyal

Mumbai: Amazon Fresh recently released the second edition of its 'Nahi toh Mehenga Padega' campaign, starring actor Manoj Bajpayee as the beloved character ‘Ghanshyam’. This quirky campaign, conceptualized by MediaMonks and directed by Harshvardhan Kulkarni, humorously depicts the common struggle of online grocery shopping, while emphasizing Amazon Fresh's commitment to value, quality, and convenience.

Delving deeper, Indiantelevision.com caught up with Amazon India director – grocery, Harsh Goyal to gain insights on the second edition of Amazon Fresh's 'Nahi toh Mehenga Padega' campaign, Amazon Fresh's differentiating aspect in the Indian market and more…

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1w6BX6sDOI2ZvOfcJLvSEEWipgqvgE1N

Edited Excerpts:

On the inspiration behind the concept of the second edition of the 'Nahi toh Mehenga Padega' campaign

The relatable character ‘Ghanshyaam’, played by Manoj Bajpayee in our Amazon Fresh ad campaigns - ‘Nahi toh Mehenga Padega’, embodies the problem that a common person has with buying groceries online. Basis our insights and research, consumers are primarily looking for value and quality in grocery items. Our recent ad campaign highlights both these aspects in a comical act where in a hurry to get groceries, customer misses out on savings and good quality. This creative approach not only captivates the audience but also deepens the brand's relationship with them. Amazon Fresh gives consumers incredible savings via bank offers and cashbacks, no delivery fee and excellent quality of fruits and vegetables.

On Amazon Fresh differentiating itself in the Indian market amidst growing competition and the challenges that Amazon Fresh tackles posed by quick commerce competitors

Grocery is a massive market and we believe various formats will co-exist, serving different consumer needs. For example, Amazon Fresh’s value proposition is not just speed but equally an extensive range of daily consumption products, incredible savings for consumers and superior quality of fruits and vegetables, delivered to customers in two-hour slots. Regardless, Amazon is continuously improving the speed at which we deliver orders to customers. Amazon deliver millions of items to customers on the same day, which is by far the largest selection delivered same day in India.

On the role of technology in ensuring the freshness and quality of groceries delivered to consumers

We believe technology plays a critical role at every stage of fresh supply chain, starting from collection centres where we buy directly from farmers and pay them quickly, to an end-to-end temperature-controlled supply chain. We have shelf monitoring cameras which feed into ML models and help us spot quality defects. At Amazon we have built an ecosystem through a team of qualified agronomists offering agri-tech expertise to registered farmer partners for better farm yield and improved product quality. The agronomy services is an application, interface through machine learning and computer-vision based algorithms that simplify supply chain processes, helps farmers to identify defects (rotting, spots, cuts, mould) in fruits and vegetables, and reduces wastage of produce. All the fresh produce is sourced directly from farmers registered with Amazon sellers at the collection centre and after a thorough quality inspection, is dispatched to the processing centres. The fresh produce is then sorted, graded, and hygienically packed in different sizes at the processing centres and dispatched to Amazon Fresh fulfilment centres located closer to customers, to fulfil delivery promises. We will keep inventing to improve product quality and supply chain efficiency to ensure our customers receive best quality produce.

On the specific trends that Amazon Fresh has observed in the Indian market during the summer season

During this mango season, we've observed significant shifts in market trends and consumer preferences on Amazon Fresh. Our top-selling mango varieties include Banganpally, Ratnagiri Alphonso, Mango Sindhura, Mango Totapuri, and Mango Kesar, with Banganpally emerging as a versatile favorite across India. We're also seeing growing interest in regional specialties such as Gulabkhas and Chinnarasalu, highlighting a broader consumer inclination towards exploring unique and local flavors.

In terms of geographical trends, Bangalore leads in mango purchases among metro cities, while Ahmedabad and Pune are showing strong engagement in non-metro areas. Furthermore, we've noticed an uptick in demand for ice creams and dairy beverages, with a 20 per cent and 33 per centincrease in customer base for these categories, respectively. At Amazon Fresh, we leverage these insights to continually enhance our offerings, curating thematic stores such as Mango, IPL, and Summer Store to cater to diverse tastes and preferences, ensuring exceptional quality, value, and convenience for our customers.

On Amazon Fresh leveraging learnings from its global operations to adapt and excel in the Indian market

Some of the supply chain, last mile and storage technology that we use in India has been perfected first in global markets. We adapt that technology for local needs. Indian market is obliviously unique in many ways. For example, the farming sector in India is quite unorganized, which made us build a direct farm to fork supply chain in the country, along with cold storage facilities. Customer’s grocery preferences change every 100 kilometers and there are lots of festivals during the year where customer need changes and we had to make our selection very local and dynamic.