Amazon to roll out credit facility for groceries and essentials

E-commerce giant Amazon is going to roll out a credit service named ‘Amazon Pay Later’ in India which will allow its consumers to buy low-ticket size products like grocery and other essentials, pay utility bills and make other required purchases on credit.

Through the new feature which is a rebrand of its existing Amazon Pay EMI, the e-commerce marketplace will offer its customers an option of interest-free credit for a month or like in its EMI service, convert the transaction amount into monthly installments for up to 12 months. The interest rate on EMI options would be ranging between 1-1.5% on a monthly basis.

The pay later service can be used for almost any product on Amazon with some exceptions like cash equivalent products such as jewelry, gift card, balance top-up, products from Amazon Global Store out of the country or overseas merchants, and gold and silver.

“In current times, Amazon Pay Later empowers our customers to better manage their monthly spends,” a TOI report quoted Mahendra Nerurkar, CEO of Amazon Pay India as saying. The report also said that the service would be launched by the end of this week.

E-commerce players have been badly hit as their services have been restricted only to delivering essentials. And to remain useful in spite of the challenges, they are forced to roll out new or rebranded features. 

Amazon had launched its EMI service back in 2018, and that has now been rebranded as ‘Amazon Pay Later.' Since the credit facility is likely to have more takers during the pandemic, Amazon sees this as a perfect branding opportunity.

The introduction of the service comes at a time when the spread of COVID-19 has left India’s economy in turmoil with disruption across sectors leading to job cuts, liquidity crunch, and an atmosphere of uncertainty. 

On Tuesday, Amazon’s India head Amit Agarwal had urged the government to allow e-commerce platforms to deliver non-essential goods as well. Last week, Amazon also launched an India first initiative ‘Local shops on Amazon’, a program to enable small shops and retailers to sell their products online.