It’s been 9 months since Amazon started quick delivery service in Leh, and sales are already up twelvefold

• Situated at a staggering 3,500 meters above sea level, Leh is now the highest spot in the world where Amazon offers fast delivery services.
  
• In October 2017, Amazon tied-up with a local delivery company, Incredible Himalaya, to hand deliver packages.
• It’s been only nine months since Amazon started offering speedy deliveries, and the number of sales has multiplied twelve times.
  

Determined to deliver to every nook and cranny of India, Amazon recently added Leh in Jammu and Kashmir to the list of towns it offers faster deliveries in. Situated at a staggering 3,500 meters above sea level, the idyllic town in the Himalayas is now the highest spot in the world where Amazon offers this service.

Earlier, Amazon used to send the items to the post office from where customers had to pick up their purchases, an understandably long and tiresome process. However, in October 2017, Amazon tied-up with a local delivery company, Incredible Himalaya, to pick up the packages from the airport, take it to their warehouse, sort the packages and finally hand deliver the items to the customers. Including Incredible Himalaya, Amazon has over 350 ‘service partners’ that are basically local companies that act as the company’s distribution network providers.

It’s been only nine months since Amazon started offering speedy deliveries, and the number of sales has multiplied twelve times. Most of its customer-base include army officers stationed at the Indo-China border, Buddhist monks and of course locals. Apart from the city of Leh, Amazon also delivers to other cities in Leh District including Diskit, Hunder and Turtuk.

While the average delivery time of five to seven days is more than the city average of two days, it is definitely much better than earlier when an item could take close to a month to make its way to the owner.

And while delivering to such remote places, where the mobile network is just as patchy as the roads, may not make much financial sense - chances are that Amazon will make little to no profits because of the high shipping costs. However, with the recent Walmart-Flipkart merger, it is perhaps essential for the company to build a larger customer base.