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BENGALUR (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc announced Friday the launch of an online pharmacy in India that will serve the southern city of Bengaluru, the e-commerce giant’s latest initiative to expand its success in a key developing market.
The service, “Amazon Pharmacy,” will offer over-the-counter and prescription drugs, fitness staples and classic Indian medicinal plants, the company said in a statement, without giving a schedule for launch.
The move comes in the middle of a developing festival in India with rivals Flipkart, owned by Walmart, the online grocery service of billionaire Mukesh Ambani JioMart and other small players.
Last month, the company opened 10 new warehouses in India and began offering car insurance. Amazon had also received permission to deliver alcohol to an Indian state, Reuters reported in June.
India has yet to complete regulation of online drug sales or online pharmacies, however, the expansion of several online distributors such as Medlife, Netmeds, PharmEasy with the support of Temasek and 1 mg with the support of Sequoia Capital has threatened classic pharmacies.
Corporations said they complied with all Indian laws, even when many teams of merchants continue to protest against e-pharmacies, saying this would lead to the sale of drugs without verification.
“Amazon’s visitor base is very high, so we are doomed to lose business. There are five million families with this trade (offline),” Yash Aggarwal, legal officer of the Southern Chemical and Distributors Association in New Delhi, said Friday. .
The organization will object to Amazon’s resolution with the government, he said.
(Information through Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru and Sankalp Phartiyal and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; edited through Arun Koyyur)