The Secrets of Amazon India Supply Chain Management

The Secrets of Amazon India Supply Chain Management

Amazon is an e-commerce-based company generally responsible for fulfilling the need of shopping in many places across the globe. With the help of Amazon Supply Chain India, it has successfully become a billion-dollar company.

Amazon was first founded in the year 1994 with hardly a single product as its base. It was first invented to sell books. With passing time, Amazon started selling several items and essential things. Across the period of its being active in the industry, Amazon has seen a definite growth in its popularity.

With increasing demand, Amazon is required to have a proper process of shipping and logistics to prevent failures. The needed push was given by pandemics to the e-commerce business. From there only, Amazon got more and more essential as a day-to-day service.

The other best service provided by Amazon is its prime membership facility. To maintain the same level of trust amongst people, Amazon needs to have a proper number of warehouses and a smooth shipping process. The whole procedure of Amazon from the start of placing an order to the receiving of the order is divided into a few parts.

Importance of Warehouse in Amazon Supply Chain
Amazon Warehouse Technique
‌Role of Logistics in Amazon Supply Chain
The Simplification of Complex Amazon Logistic Process
Amazon Shipping Options

Importance of Warehouse in Amazon Supply Chain

An Inside Image of an Amazon Warehouse
An Inside Image of an Amazon Warehouse

Warehouses are used by Amazon company as a place to store their products. Amazon has its warehouse management preplanned in a way to provide a smooth functioning for its business. For a country like India, there must be several warehouses set up to provide services at all places.

There are approximately 60 warehouses of Amazon in India all at different places. The biggest warehouse of Amazon is placed in the city of Bengaluru with an area of approximately 2.4 million cubic feet. Another great initiative taken by Amazon was installing a fulfillment center or warehouse in Patna that will be helpful for almost 11,000 sellers.

The places decided by Amazon to be its warehouse are also based on a few conditions. Amazon is known to set up its warehouses, especially near metropolitan cities. It is known to use a pure push strategy as its location selection technique. The warehouse is needed for the storing of products and distributing, the products for delivery purposes.

Amazon Warehouse Technique

Another strategy used by Amazon concerning the warehouse is the use of a chaotic system. With the mention of a warehouse system idea, the first thought that crosses the mind is a neatly packed storage place with its shelves all in order and labeled. But for Amazon, the warehouse is rather chaotic than organized.

Amazon follows the principle of keeping things in a chaotic manner by allocating a product to any available position in its warehouse. This system is primely helpful and useful because of the barcodes stocked on them.

The unique fact about the Amazon warehouse system is that the workspace is shared by the robots and human beings cordially. Amazon started using robots from the year 2012 after the acquisition of a company named Kiva.

From then on, Amazon has reportedly known to increase the count of robots roughly by 15,000 in tally. Amazon products are kept randomly in the warehouse but with the introduction of barcodes on them. These barcodes are then scanned by the robots for use.

This information is then transferred over to the inventory system making it possible to have an exact count of products present in the warehouse. At the present time, almost all processes are done by Artificial Intelligence.

Use of Robots in Amazon Warehouse
Use of Robots in Amazon Warehouse

Amazon warehouses can be found at famous locations such as Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi, Ludhiana, etc. There is a proper warehouse management system installed by Amazon to have a smooth working process.

Apart from warehouses, there are about 25 specialized locations specially assigned for supplying fresh things such as fruits and vegetables along with groceries and daily essentials.

Amazon Centre Locations Across India as per the source MWPVL International
Amazon Centre Locations Across India as per the source MWPVL International

‌Role of Logistics in Amazon Supply Chain

Amazon logistics has the prime role of managing inventory. It keeps a good check on the items placed inside a warehouse. Amazon logistics are responsible to decide the warehouse in which a product has to be sent or from where to ship a product.

Amazon is known to have a chaotic arrangement of goods, the logistics are only responsible for the proper tracking of a particular product location in such a bug warehouse. When an order is placed by any customer, the arrangement of shipping that product to its nearby shipping center. All this comes under the logistics of Amazon.

  • The selection of suitable methods for even transportation comes under the role of Amazon Logistics.
  • The segregation of products with different storing conditions and placing them accordingly is also an important role of Amazon Logistics.

The Simplification of Complex Amazon Logistic Process

The Basic Process of Amazon Supply Chain
The Basic Process of Amazon Supply Chain

It is very important to simplify the complex process of shipping and logistics for the early delivery of products. With the availability of prime service, people tend to get their order within 2 days.

To avail and follow the such practice, it is very important to have a system in place. Amazon is known to store its product in warehouses. Warehouses are nothing but messy places full of different products.

Each product is assigned with a different barcode on them, which enables easy identification of inside products. The products from each seller are shipped into nearby warehouses or warehouses assigned. Once the product has been accepted inside the warehouse, they are kept at any available place.

When a customer places an order, the order is tracked back to the warehouse, and entry is checked about the place of that particular product. Which is rechecked through barcode scanning again.

From there, the product is picked up and sent to customers' nearby allocated shipping centers. The shipping center has blocks assigned for particular places. There is an installment of another sticker on the product parcel in the shipping center. From here, the product is dispatched by the area code given on it and the facility available for it.

Amazon Shipping Options

Prime Air- An Amazon Planned Delivery Step
Prime Air- An Amazon Planned Delivery Step

Sometimes, some sellers recommend shipping orders through their service only. This is also allowed in Amazon terms and conditions. Amazon uses many shipping partners for easy work, some of them are FedEx shipping, Gati, Indian Postal Service, Bluedart, etc.

Along with these postal services, Amazon is known to have its postal service developed in India. Amazon also owns a transportation service named Amazon Transportation Service [ATS].

The prime service which enables its user to receive its products within 2 days, sometimes also gets the use of Airway to achieve its goal. According to the area and the place of shipment, the most suitable ride option is then selected by Amazon shipping. There are about 20 airports all over the world to help in the fast shipping of products with the help of cargo.

Conclusion

‌Today, Amazon is considered one of the greatest e-commerce companies. To maintain such a big company and to give its customers satisfactory services, there have been multiple guidelines and techniques used for its shipping and logistics.

To carry out services in the least time possible, Amazon uses different available techniques for storage and shipping from a warehouse, and then it uses the best suitable method for the transportation of its products. With all the aspects in place, Amazon keeps its shipping and logistics at their best.

FAQs

How does Amazon's supply chain work in India?

After a customer clicks buy, Amazon receives products at the fulfillment center. The product passes through quality checks that are done at a large scale and with innovation including humans and robots. The order is packed and hence shipped through its logistic partners.

What logistics does Amazon use in India?

The majority, of Amazon, uses its logistics for delivery. Apart from that other partners includes, BlueDart, FedEx, Delhivery, eCom Express, Aramex, Indian Post Service & Gati.

Does Amazon have its logistics in India?

Amazon has set up its own logistics branch in India. A U.S.-based subsidiary of Amazon.com. Amazon Transportation Services Private Limited (ATSL) will ship products from sellers they sell through the e-commerce giant's platform.

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