Amazon India on Thursday announced its first-ever floating store on Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir, as part of its last-mile delivery programme “I Have Space”.
Murtaza Khan Kashi, owner of houseboat Selec Town, will deliver packages every day to customers at the doorstep of their houseboats as part of the onboarding.
Amazon Logistics, India, Director Karuna Shankar Pande said this will provide faster and reliable deliveries to customers across Srinagar, opportunities for small businesses and strengthen Amazon’s delivery network.
Launched in 2015, the ‘I Have Space’ programme has 28,000 neighbourhood and kirana partners in about 420 towns and cities in India. It partners with local stores and small businesses for delivering products within a 2 to 4 kilometres radius.
Amazon’s flagship programme ‘I Have Space’ facilitates the delivery of parcels and couriers. Once enrolled, the IHS partner receives packages on store location, which they need to deliver to the customer. The IHS partner receives payment from Amazon, based on the number of packages delivered.
Amazon claims to have more than 28,000 IHS partners on over 350 cities across India. It doesn’t require any investments from the local partners, and anyone can be part of the programme. All they need to do is collect and deliver parcels to nearby locations. On an average, an Amazon IHS store partners can deliver between 20 and 30 packages a day, while earning a fixed amount per delivery in return.