Amazon to soon foray into India's rising Cloud Kitchen market

American fast-casual restaurant chain Panera is taking its loyalty program MyPanera to a whole new level with Amazon One’s newly launched loyalty linking capability.

Amazon One, the palm recognition service that lets customers enter, identify, and pay, will for the first time provide the additional capability of linking MyPanera loyalty memberships to customers’ Amazon One profiles.

Panera is the first restaurant chain to offer Amazon One’s new loyalty linking capability, allowing guests to take full advantage of their MyPanera loyalty program, as well as pay for their purchases with just their palm.

“We are excited to deploy Amazon One in our restaurants because we want to deliver a frictionless and personalized loyalty experience for our guests,” said Niren Chaudhary, CEO of Panera Bread and Panera Brands by adding that Amazon One is a great option for guests who want a quick and convenient way to sign up for MyPanera loyalty program, redeem their rewards, and pay for their order with a simple hover of their palm over the Amazon One Device—all while enjoying a highly personalized in-store experience.

Known for its soups, sandwiches, salads, and freshly baked pastries, Panera has gained an immense following for its MyPanera loyalty program, which now boasts more than 52 million members, each with access to personalized rewards.

Guests who choose to enroll in Amazon One and link their MyPanera account simply hover their palm over the Amazon One device, and a Panera associate will be able to welcome them by name and provide a highly personalized experience. Enrollment in Amazon One is voluntary and includes opt-in consent. Guests can choose to use Amazon One for loyalty linking, payment, or both.

Amazon One with the loyalty linking feature is launching at two Panera bakery-cafes in the St. Louis area (Town and Country and Bridgeton locations), and will become available at additional Panera locations in the coming months.

“We’re excited to see how MyPanera members enjoy the experience as Amazon One rolls out to additional Panera bakery-cafes in the coming months. With the introduction of loyalty linking and online pre-enrollment capabilities, consumers, retailers, fast casual restaurants, and other businesses can soon appreciate the versatility and convenience of Amazon One. Whether it’s to grab a beer at a sports stadium, make a last-minute purchase at an airport store before boarding a flight, or buy groceries at Whole Foods Market stores, consumers can simply hover their palm,” added Amazon in the statement.

The new Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go, located in New York City at 59^th Street between Park & Lexington Avenues, opens on November 18, 2021. 

The store is a combination of a Starbucks Pickup and Amazon Go, utilizing the order ahead feature in the Starbucks app and Amazon Go’s Just Walk Out technology to create an easy checkout experience, alongside a modernized lounge that features individual workspaces and expanded tables with power outlets and USB ports.

The new store offers the full Starbucks menu and a curated assortment of food and beverages in the Amazon Go market, including fresh-prepared salads, sandwiches, bakery items, and snack options.

“The new Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go is designed to provide our customers with an experience that delivers convenience and connection in an effortless way,” said Katie Young, senior vice president of global growth and development at Starbucks.

Starbucks Pickup stores primarily accept orders that are placed through the Starbucks app prior to the customer arriving at the store. Customers can place and pay for their order by selecting the Starbucks on “59^th between Park & Lex w/ Amazon Go” as their desired location in the app. Once the customer arrives at the location, they can find the status of their order on a digital screen in the store and then pick up their order directly from a Starbucks barista.

“Amazon Go and Starbucks share a common vision to provide innovative in-store experiences that are centered on the customer,” said Dilip Kumar, vice president of physical retail and technology at Amazon by adding that customers have enjoyed the effortless shopping experience enabled by Just Walk Out technology at Amazon Go where they can simply come in, grab something delicious to eat or drink, and just leave and carry on with their day without having to wait in line to pay.

To enter the Amazon Go market and store’s lounge seating, customers can use the “In-Store Code” in the Amazon Shopping app, Amazon One or a credit card, and then shop the Amazon Go market like any other Amazon Go store. Once inside, anything customers take off the shelf is automatically added to their virtual cart. Anything they put back on the shelf comes out of their virtual cart. When a customer is done shopping, they can either sit in the lounge area to enjoy their Starbucks® beverage and food item selected from the Amazon Go market or be on their way. After the customer leaves the Amazon Go market, their card will be charged and they can access their receipt within a few hours, sometimes faster.

Starbucks and Amazon Go plan to open at least three Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go stores in the coming year, with a second location planned for The New York Times Building located at 40^th Street & 8^th Avenue in New York City next year.

Mobile-based service payment provider Juspay that also processes transactions for food delivery player Swiggy, Amazon to name a few had data breach that took place in August 2020.

Personal data of over 10 crore Juspay users were on sale on the Dark Web.

The breach came into highlight after internet security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia shared on social media a sample of the data that was available for sale on the dark web.

Also Read: Dunzo data breach leaks personal information of over 3 million users

Acknowledging the breach, Juspay said on August 18, 2020, the company noticed unauthorised activities in one of its data stores. “An old unrecycled AWS access key was exploited and that enabled the unauthorised access. An automatic system alert was triggered due to a sudden increase in the usage of the system resources on the data store. Our incident response team immediately engaged and was able to trace the intrusion and stop it. The server used in the hack was terminated and the entry point for this intrusion was sealed,” shared a blog statement by the start-up.

“About 3.5 crore records with masked card data and card fingerprint (which are non-sensitive information) were breached. The masked card data is used for display purposes and cannot be used for completing a transaction,” it added.

May Interest: FreshMenu’s 2016 Data Breach Exposed Records of 110k Users

Clarifying the delay in disclosure, the payment service provider shared, “We verified that our secure data store, which hosts the confidential card numbers, was not accessed or compromised. Thus, all our customers were secure from any kind of risk. Our priority was to inform the merchants and, as a measure of abundant precaution, they were issued fresh API keys, though it was later verified that even the API keys in use were safe.”

E-Commerce major amazon has extended its food delivery service at select locations in Delhi, Bengaluru.

Amazon that entered into the food delivery space earlier this May, is now delivering in Bengaluru.

Also Read: Amazon enters Food delivery segment, starts delivery in select Bangalore locations

The company originally planned to launch the service in India last year, which it then moved to March but pushed it further amid the nationwide lockdown.

“Customers have been telling us for some time that they would like to order prepared meals on Amazon in addition to shopping for all other essentials. This is particularly relevant in present times as they stay home safe,” shared the spokesperson during its launch in May.

May Interest: Amazon to soon foray into India’s rising Cloud Kitchen market

Amazon began testing the food delivery service with select restaurant partners in Bangalore earlier this year.

Amazon that announced its entry into the food delivery business last month has announced delivery of alcohol in West Bengal.

The American multinational technology company has received clearance to start delivery of alcohol in West Bengal.

A notice sent on Friday by the West Bengal State Beverages Corp, the authorised agency which carries out online retail of liquor trade in the state has stated that Amazon was one of the companies found to be eligible for registration with the authorities, reported Reuters.

Alibaba backed venture Big Basket has also received approval to deliver alcohol in the state.

Earlier, Swiggy and Zomato have also started delivering alcohol in the Indian state of West Bengal.

The robust growth of the online food delivery industry in the recent years is not unknown to us. It has not only been expanding our food choice at our convenience, but the very fact that it offers a wide array of restaurants with a single tap of their mobile phone is something that makes it noteworthy.

After huge investments in a two-hour delivery supply chain for Amazon Now portfolio, Amazon is now piloting its much-anticipated project of food delivery in select localities in Bengaluru. With Swiggy and Zomato being the primary keys players in the industry, the entrance of a new player, Amazon is surely going to be a game-changer in the industry in terms of rise in competition or change in logistics.

Amazon has constantly been covering new areas of business to its platform ever since its existence. And this new move to enter the food delivery industry is surely a part of building a comprehensive product portfolio. In times when Swiggy and Zomato have cut discounts and tightened cost structure, it would be noteworthy to witness the steps they would take to keep their foot in place.

The Challenge that comes with Amazon

Amazon’s entry into the food delivery market would create new challenges for Prosus Ventures-backed Swiggy and Zomato. Both the startups, having raised more than $2 billion together, are still not profitable, losing more than $15 million each month to acquire new customers and sustain existing ones. Figuring a path to profitability might take some time in a country like India. Amazon’s established image in the market guarantees no surety of its success as Swiggy operates in more than 520 cities in India and maintains a partnership with over 160,000 partners.

With proper logistics and strategic approach, dynamics might change for both existing and the new player Until then, it would be interesting to watch how Amazon will use its base to attract customers and what strategy would Swiggy and Zomato undertake to retain their existing customers.

Amazon is looking at using Prime Now, its two-hour delivery platform, for its venture into food delivery business in India. With the addition of a food delivery segment to its Prime offering, the company will not only bring in more daily users but also boost the number of transactions.

Amazon India has also held preliminary discussions with Foodpanda, Ola's food delivery unit, for a partnership that could be later extended to an acquisition. It has further approached Uber Eats for the same.

Prime Now, earlier known as Amazon Now, is likely to be used as a platform concentrating on high-frequency use cases of food and grocery delivery.

A source aware of the development said, “Amazon has spent some time debating whether to build food delivery from scratch or go for partnership and investments. They seem to have opted for the latter. They have held talks with both Uber and Ola for it. Prime Now cannot be sustained just on the grocery delivery as the logistics team has questioned inefficient utilisation of delivery fleet for the express delivery platform.”

Formed for the e-commerce sector, the Government's revised FDI guidelines offer support to traditional businesses posing a threat to food retail giants.

The US-based online retail company Amazon has decided to discontinue selling food on its website which will be effective from February 1, 2019.

Amazon was the only foreign retailer pledging investment in the food retail business that amounted up to USD 500 million. The new guidelines pose as an obstacle to this as well as affects Amazon's decision to buy a stake in Future Retail.

The company had planned to acquire a 9.5 per cent stake in Future Retail owned by Kishore Biyani but according to the new guidelines, that won't be possible as the group is a seller on the Amazon website.

Speaking about the development, one of the people having direct knowledge said, “Amazon Retail India Pvt Ltd (ARIPL), which is a seller of foodstuff on Amazon.in, will stop selling post-February 1 in a bid to comply with the new marketplace regulations.”

“We remain committed to invest in India in a way that can work with the government’s vision towards the farmer and agricultural community but at present, we are still evaluating the Press Note 2 guidelines,” added the seller.

Speaking on this matter, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said, “We support FDI entering India. We recorded a total of $61.85 billion of FDI and we are now targeting $100 billion, and to achieve this we have prepared a plan which will help the company to invest. We will also have to assure all the foreign investors and domestic investors that we will continue to have a stable and transparent policy.”

Several industry experts believe that these new rules will protect the interests of traditional businesses as several of these companies had complained of huge losses due to these e-commerce giants.

Source: Economic Times

Former Cloudtail CEO of Madhu M has been appointed as the head of food retail venture for the Seattle-based e-tailer in the country, people aware of the development said.

Amazon has allocated about $500 million of investment for its food retail business and recently expanded its pilot project to new cities after a test run in Pune earlier this year.

Madhu served as the CEO of Cloudtail for almost three years starting in 2014 after working with Amazon from 2011. He joined Amazon India again as director (category leadership) after stepping down as CEO of Cloudtail.

Sources in the know said Madhu is being given the charge to look after the food retail business as the company prepares for a wider launch across the country. When contacted, an Amazon spokesperson did not comment on the matter but said the company was expanding the business in India. "We have expanded our pilot to a few cities and are on track to launch the food retail business in India," the spokesperson said.

Amazon has shown aggressive to the India market with its e-commerce business and it is expected it would build a substantial presence for food retailing as well. However, the company is currently in the process of fulfilling government compliance before launching it nationally. "The pilot is being expanded at a cautious pace and a regular Amazon-like scale rollout is still some months away," a person aware the plans said.

Amazon Retail India, the wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon that houses the food retailing business, is expected to run the business separately from the core e-commerce business.

The government in 2016 allowed 100% foreign direct investment in food-only retail and Amazon's application to start the business was approved last year in July. Once a national roll-out is done, Amazon will retail locally produced and packaged food products through offline and online channels.

Amazon's online payments processing arm Amazon Pay has confirmed to partner with Dominos to enable customers on Domino's online platforms to make payments using Amazon Pay along with offers, weekend deals and cashbacks.

Customers are looking for convenience, fast delivery, easy checkouts, quicker refunds and a secured shopping experience and this tie-up is a natural progression for both players, the company said in a statement.

"We are happy to partner with Dominos Pizza to extend the trusted and convenient Amazon Pay experience for customers," said Manesh Mahatme, Director, Acceptance and Merchant Payments, Amazon Pay.

Amazon Pay's availability on Dominos' apps is being made available for both, Android and iOS users.

"With this partnership, we are also extending our commitment to transform the customer experience both within and outside our restaurants," said Kapil Grover, Chief Marketing Officer, Domino's Pizza India.

Amazon is rolling out extra discounts for Prime members at the organic grocer starting on Wednesday at stores in Florida and expand nationwide this summer.

Prime members will get an additional 10 percent off sale items and exclusive deals on certain groceries.

Since it bought Whole Foods last year, Amazon has cut prices on some groceries, begun offering same-day delivery to Prime members in several cities and extended its 5 percent cash back Amazon rewards credit card to Whole Foods purchases.

Last month, Amazon had claimed to have more than 100 million paid Prime members worldwide. That was before it announced it's raising the price to $119 a year, up from $99.

Beating its global rival Walmart, Amazon has made it to the Indian food retail market as the first foreign company to start its food retail venture in India.  In 2017, the ecommerce giant received affirmation from the Indian government to invest $500 Mn in India’s food retail space.

Amazon Retail Pvt. Ltd. will be providing the grocery services and will start with its pilot services in Pune thereby giving competition with other leading online grocery and food retail marketplaces like Grofers, Bigbasket, Supr Daily, who received similar approvals from the government for food retailing.

Walmart which is planning to acquire a 40% stake in Indian ecommerce major Flipkart can be taken as the reaction to this development by amazon in the progressive investments in the Indian markets.

Amazon spokesperson in the statement said, it will take around a quarter for the company to completely roll out its food retailing business in the country.

Amazon has already launched Amazon Now, an app for food and grocery items home delivery to meet their instant food demands. Currently, Amazon’s warehouses in India do not store food items to meet the Amazon Now demand. With this development, amazon has achieved the direct access to the consumers.

All the major e-commerce companies are constantly vying to capture major chunk in the Indian Food space like Alibaba (recently acquired BigBasket), Walmart are aggressively trying to now eat the major share in Indian food and grocery vertical.

The chief executive of online food ordering firm Delivery Hero expects competition from the likes of Amazon and Uber to make it harder to make money although the German company is still targeting breakeven this year.

Niklas Ostberg, a Swedish former management consultant who founded the company in 2011 said Delivery Hero has the critical mass to fend off the U.S. giants, but admits their move into food delivery could dampen profits.

Ostberg said, "It will be difficult for all the market players to survive. Everybody is fighting for size, because only then you have a chance. It will be hard to make any money as long as competition is as it is right now." As most people only download and use one food delivery app, start-ups spend heavily on marketing to win control of markets. Uber and Amazon can promote food delivery to existing customers and cross-subsidise the business.

The German firm which is the world's biggest food delivery platform covers more than 40 countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific, and partners with more than 150,000 restaurants.

The company claims to be the market leader in 35 of those countries, although it is battling with Takeaway.com for control of its home market, prompting the chief executive of its Dutch rival to raise the idea of a merger last month.

Ostberg further said acquisitions were less important, now the company has reached scale, although it would still consider "interesting" targets. "We have the size that is necessary to sustain competition.”

Delivery Hero, in which South African e-commerce giant Naspers and Germany's Rocket Internet are major investors, is well placed for more acquisitions after it made a placement of new shares to raise funds.

Delivery Hero, Takeaway.com and Britain's Just Eat have established their positions in market by creating booking platforms that advertise local restaurants, which handle their own deliveries.

The entry of Uber and Amazon into the market has led to company to focus more on managing logistics.

Ostberg said, "Economics may get tougher ... we may compete more and more on the delivery fees. The winner will be the one who is efficient enough to afford it."

Both UberEats and Amazon has built more restaurants in nearly 200 cities around the world, while UberEats alone has   more than 80,000  restaurants while Amazon currently has a food delivery service open to members of its Prime shopping club in cities across the United States and in London.

Last week, Delivery Hero reported a rise of 60 percent in 2017 sales to 544 million euros ($671.68 million) on a like-for-like basis, with growth particularly strong in the Middle East and North Africa, followed by Asia.

Amazon is preparing to start selling locally made foodstuff through a wholly owned subsidiary in India from March, eight months after the US behemoth received government approval to invest $500 million in the venture, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The unit can sell only locally produced and packaged food products and will directly compete with Grofers and BigBasket in the online segment. Seattle-based Amazon was the first major company to make a large investment in the food-only retailing sector that India created, allowing 100% foreign ownership in subsidiaries that would sell locally produced food items.

Other global retailers including Walmart have shied away from the segment, arguing that selling only low-margin food items does not make economic sense and such ventures should be allowed to stock non-food items such as shampoos to detergent soaps to make them viable.

Amazon won approval in July to invest $500 million in India over five years to sell third-party and its own private-label food articles, sourced and packaged locally, both online and through brick and-mortar stores. Food is the only segment where it’s allowed to sell directly to consumers. The Indian government sidestepped the intense opposition to foreign investment in multi brand retail in 2016 to create a food retailing segment that it said was aimed at creating jobs and helping farmers.

Amazon currently operates an online marketplace in India and isn’t allowed to sell directly to consumers. It can only act as an intermediary by lending its technological platform to local vendors to sell goods.

US-headquartered e-commerce firm, Amazon.com Inc. is in preliminary talks to acquire hyperlocal delivery service provider, BigBasket, as the company steps up efforts to gain ground in the fast-growing market.

The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to a sale, sources revealed. BigBasket is India’s largest online grocery firm and operates in about 25 cities across the country.

A BigBasket spokesperson said that it is untrue that Amazon is in talks to buy the firm.

Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon, has vowed to spend $5 billion in India in coming years as he competes against local rivals. Amazon’s success in the country has pushed the two largest domestic e-commerce players, Flipkart Ltd. and Snapdeal, into a preliminary agreement to combine.

According to people aware of the matter, Amazon and BigBasket have not yet agreed to any specific terms. BigBasket has also had discussions with private equity firms. The startup has been boosting revenue quickly and has reached break-even in two cities.

Amazon has been expanding in online food and grocery sales as it seeks to increase its product offerings. This year, it opened drive-in grocery locations in Seattle, its home town, as part of a renewed effort in the business.

Last year, BigBasket raised $150 million in a funding round led by Dubai’s Abraaj Group, and its backers also include Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners.

Starbucks has said that it is partnering with Amazon's voice platform to offer what it calls "on command" ordering.

Anyone who has an Amazon device with Alexa, like the Echo smart speaker, is able to place a Starbucks order by just using their voice.

Starbucks is also launching a beta test of voice ordering through its iPhone app. The Seattle-based coffee giant says the feature is being rolled out to a limited group of 1,000 people nationwide. It plans to expand the feature later this year.

Starbucks chief technology officer Gerri Martin-Flickinger says in a statement that the company expects to "learn a lot from both of these experiences and to evolve them over time."

Amazon has announced Amul's foray into online selling in the US through its Global Selling Program.

In line with Amazon's vision to transform the way India buys and sells, this exclusive association will enable consumers in the US to enjoy Amul's high-quality products.

At launch, Amul is offering Amul Ghee to global customers through Amazon.com. Going forward, Amul plans to add additional products from its wide product portfolio on Amazon.com

Amazon's Global Selling Program was launched in India in May last year. It facilitates easy, simple and convenient access for all Indian sellers - including entrepreneurs, SMEs, manufacturers as well as large brands – to sell their 'Make in India' products to consumers across the globe.

The program has witnessed a 70% increase in seller base as compared to last year with a total of over 18,000 Indian sellers on the platform selling globally across Amazon's 9 global marketplaces. The program offers a comprehensive end-to-end solution that includes assisting sellers with imaging, logistics, tax advisory and remittance.

R S Sodhi, Managing Director, GCMMF (Amul), said, "Amul has been exporting its products to the USA since last 20 years and has been selling through the traditional retail channel there. We are positive that our mainstream online US consumers can be seamlessly satiated through our partnership with Amazon."

Gopal Pillai, Director and GM, Seller Services, Amazon India, said, "Through this program, we will offer Amul an end-to-end solution and help the brand cater to the growing appetite for quality Indian food products amongst global consumers."

Pillai further added, "We have been witnessing an increasing demand for ‘Made in India’ products amongst global consumers across ethnicities. Since its inception last year, our Global Selling Program has grown multifold and now enables over 18,000 merchants to sell their products to millions of consumers across 9 international markets."

Johnny Rockets, the global restaurant chain, announced the appointment of Harry Yu to the position of Senior Director of Information Technology. Yu has more than twenty years of experience analyzing, developing and implementing the IT infrastructure and operational improvements for a variety of brands. 

Harry Yu joins the Johnny Rockets team from Amazon.com, where he was responsible for the Amazon fulfilment centres, managing IT operations, services, governance and budget control. He trained and managed a team of engineers and technicians and was part of the group responsible for launching Amazon's world-class fulfilment centres. Earlier to joining Amazon.com, Yu headed up IT for Fresh Enterprises, the parent company of Baja Fresh Mexican Grill, La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grill and Canyons Burger Company.

"Harry is an important addition to our team," said James Walker, President of Development and Operations at Johnny Rockets.

"Over the last two years, Johnny Rockets has become more information and data driven. We are committed to continue our investment in state-of-the-art technology at our restaurant support centre and in our restaurants in both domestic and international markets. Harry will be instrumental in helping us align our business strategies with our IT strategies and working with us to build new ways to engage our restaurant guests and our stakeholders", he added.

Harry Yu will report to James Walker at Johnny Rockets corporate headquarters in Aliso Viejo, CA.