Inside Jeff Bezos’s US$5bil bet that Amazon can win India

Packages move along a conveyor belt at the Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center in Hyderabad, India on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017. Amazon opened its largest Indian fulfillment center in Hyderabad. The center spans 400,000 square feet with 2.1m cubic feet of storage capacity the company said in a statement. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

It’s mere weeks to the festival of Diwali, the season of lavish, reckless consumption, and in a cavernous warehouse minutes from the Hyderabad airport, hundreds of workers are furiously sorting mountains of everyday items. 

There are sunglasses and shaving creams, sewing machines, vegetable slicers and microwave ovens, all lined up by Amazon.com Inc to sate the shopping frenzy that’s India’s Black Friday and Christmas combined. The windowless 400,000 square foot facility is fitted with 500 kilometres of cables and 16,000 fire sprinklers. Sellers pour in with their wares precariously balanced on two-wheelers, or in autorickshaws and pickup trucks.