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Amazon may export delivery lessons from India to cut costs abroad

E-commerce giant Amazon.com is taking lessons learnt from its daily battles with India’s choked roads and cramped cities to some of its largest developed markets, exporting a model of cheaper deliveries and reduced warehousing costs.

Online shopping is booming in India, where millions of consumers are newly able to access the Internet thanks to cheap smartphones. For Amazon, it is already the largest contributor of new customers outside the United States.

But, like local rivals Flipkart and Snapdeal, Amazon has struggled with deliveries in cities where snarl-ups are frequent and road signs unreliable. In response, firms have set up logistics networks and use motorbikes instead of trucks. Flipkart, for one, has tapped Mumbai’s dabbawalas, a more than a century-old lunch box distribution service.
 

(Source: Jakarta Globe )