Amazon India Officially Launches 'Local Finds' Buying, Selling Platform in Four Cities

Amazon India has officially launched its Local Finds service in India, a platform for customers to find and sell used and new goods to others in their city. Piloted in Bengaluru since earlier this year and spotted in action last month, the service is now live in Chennai, Hyderabad, and Mumbai in addition. Amazon facilitates delivery and payments for Local Finds transactions, something that's rare to see in the online pre-owned and online classifieds space - a USP of the service with the company picking, packing, and shipping the product.

Through Local Finds, Amazon India customers in the same city can other buy and sell products amongst each other. Product categories include books, fashion, home decor, music, movies, mobiles, laptops, accessories, tablets, and video games. The company boasts that customers are adding "hand crafted and rare products" daily. The Bengaluru pilot saw roughly 600 sellers, and up to launch, it has seen 30,000 customers use the service across all four cities.

To launch Local Finds, Amazon India has an introductory offer with free delivery along with cashback (up to Rs. 100) as Amazon Pay Balance for purchases of certain items, and as an incentive for sellers, it is offering additional earnings of Rs. 500 upon selling five items.

Talking about Local Finds, Mahendra Nerurkar, Director - New Initiatives, Amazon India said, "Through our pilot, we realized that in every city we have customers who have a few products to sell - some want to get value for their used products, others are hobbyists, creators and home entrepreneurs who need to find the right customers for what they collect or create and there are customers who are interested in buying such products. Existing solutions available to such sellers and buyers had gaps - people needed to commute in traffic and meet strangers, this lead to privacy and safety concerns along with precious time and money lost. With Local Finds, we aim to seamlessly connect sellers and buyers, help them quickly list and discover each other's products and transact tension free with delivery, payments and customer service facilitated by Amazon. We are humbled to see over 30,000 customers sell their products on Local Finds in such a short period of time."