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Jun 5, 2013 at 9:29 AM
Amazon has finally launched its flagship Marketplace business in India, after the site quietly went live in the country, although it is only selling books at this point.
India is the tenth country where Amazon Marketplace is available. The service is a central point from which independent retailers can sell a range of goods and products from third parties using the ‘marketplace’ model that is also adopted by Japanese retailer Rakuten, among others.
The launch has been a silent one since there is no announcement on Amazon’s media center, as you’d expect from a laucnh into such a significant country. The press release section on Amazon India site says “Press Release [sic] will be published soon”, but there are a series of infographic-come-press-releases which confirm the launch.
Restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI) have thus far prevented Amazon from selling direct to consumers in the country, but, by hosting a site where third parties do the selling, the issue is sidestepped.
The company launched Junglee, a site that aggregates deals from Web retailers in India, last year as an experiment to test the water in India while rules dictating that foreign firms cannot sell goods online keep its full service out. Authorities in India did relax FDI regulations for physical retailers — rules now allow overseas firms to hold a 51 percent stake in multi-brand retailers, or a full 100 percent share of single-brand retailers — but there’s been no change in the prohibition for overseas direct-to-consumer retail sites.
Source
Update : They are selling movies too.
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