In the US, due to stiff competition from Grub Hub, Postmates etc. Amazon shut its food delivery business in June 2019. On a merrier note, though they exited from the food delivery business, they kept their ambitions alive by purchasing stakes in Deliveroo, a UK based food delivery platform. So the question is same again, can Amazon pull it off now? Have they learnt their mistakes from US & London? Have they not been threatened by the failure of Uber Eats in India?
Adding to this, the current Covid scenario has hit the restaurant business heavily. Swiggy & Zomato have also downsized and are trying their luck in groceries and alcohol delivery. Yes, Amazon food delivery was on the cards since a long time but when most of the restaurants are shutting down, when Swiggy & Zomato own a lot of cloud kitchens already, users shying away from ordering online, Is this the right time to test their food delivery business in India?
In my opinion, it seems more like a sunk cost bias, this was on their plan, with investments and efforts put in already, they had to test it soon. If not this, given that Zomato & Swiggy are turning towards groceries, they could also enter into Amazon’s core. So it could also be a feint tactic or a Guerrilla warfare tactic of Amazon as a part of their strategic interdependent strategy.
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