Sellers Have The Rights To Decide The Pricing They Want To Offer, Says Amazon India Fashion and Beauty's Zeba Khan

Ahead of Amazon’s yearly sale, ‘Great Indian Festival,’ set to commence on September 27th, Zeba Khan, director of Fashion and Beauty at Amazon India, spoke to Outlook Business on the company’s strategic approach for the festive season. Amazon is scaling its operational capacities to accommodate the anticipated surge in demand, with significant enhancements in both virtual centers and delivery infrastructure. While the company has not established specific sales targets, its primary focus remains on attracting new customers and elevating the overall shopping experience during this critical period. 

What are the preparations Amazon India’s Fashion and Beauty category has done to match pace with the festive season?

At Amazon we always want to give the best customer experience, and we understand that the sale season is the most awaited by customers. However, we understand that the sales and the order velocity is much higher during this time. We have certain measures of predicting the load and demand for certain products. So, we do plan our operational capacities be it space in our virtual centers or be it at the end of our delivery associate, so we stay well equipped.  

The festive season sales happen every year, what new are you offering this season in the fashion and beauty segment? 

One of the major trends that we have observed lately is the demand of premium products from customers. Keeping this in mind, we recently launched Premium Store which has a selection of over 650+ premium brands, including names like Seiko, Mathey Tissot, Tommy Hilfiger, Guess, Swarovski, Satya Paul, and more. Furthermore, the focus on premium brands during events has precipitated a notable spike of over 45 per cent YoY in premium segments. We have also seen a 84 per cent growth in gold jewellery segment as well.

The demand for clean beauty and Korean beauty remains strong in the premium beauty category. There is a remarkable 40 per cent YoY growth in business from clean beauty brands, both global players and homegrown favorites within the luxury beauty segment.  

We are also launching many international beauty brands on Amazon. We just launched the 2.0 version of the Global Beauty store, which is gaining a lot of traction. We have a lot of new offerings as well, such as the Derma Store, the Gen Z store etc. 

Is there anything different that you are you offering at the Gen Z store? 

The Gen Z store was designed keeping in mind the ‘Gen-Z’ audience, here we curate brands and selections based on the trends that Gen Z embraces, presenting everything in an easy-to-shop format for them. Our goal is to offer the best value possible. For instance, if graphic T-shirts are trending, we create a dedicated section for them. Similarly, if florals are in vogue, you’ll find a separate area for those as well. This approach ensures that our selections are regularly updated to reflect the latest trends. Essentially, we design our offerings around current trends. 

Gen Z store houses a curated selection from over 100+ known and 50+ emerging brands. Some popular brands among Gen Z include Bewakoof, Only, Aldo, Madame, Mokobara, Kimirica, Snitch, and Nike, among others. 

Many of the fashion and beauty brands selling on Amazon are also available on quick commerce. How do you think you will compete with their speedy delivery and hefty discounts? 

Timely and safe delivery are our key focus. We have around 10 lakh products which are delivered in under 24 hours or the very next day. Amazon stands for trust. I think we all agree that it is like the Google of e-commerce and there is no need to second guess while shopping there. It is the trust that has been built over 10 years. Regarding discounts, it is on the sellers to decide what pricing they want to offer to the customers. Amazon has always strived to build a healthy buyer and seller relationship.  

Any targets that you have set for yourself as a segment, during the festive season? 

No target numbers as such but we are surely looking forward to acquiring a whole host of new customers this festive season and offering better experiences as we move ahead.