​No more waiting for online delivery. Collect your Amazon order from the neighbourhood store

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If you are too excited to wait for the new tank top you ordered online, Amazon has a solution for you. Also, sometimes, the delivery guy acts pricey and denies delivering your order at your convenient time, you won’t have to coax and cajole him.

Having initiated the venture with 20 pickup centres in Bengaluru and thereby graduating to more than 800 points across 45 cities including Thoothukudi, Thanjavur, Vijayawada, Belgaum, Kolhapur, Rajkot and Ludhiana, Amazon India is pioneering a strategy that may soon become the trend across the ecommerce ambit.

As per a news report by The Economic Times, the 'Amazon Pickup' programme puts to use any available physical rentable space " a store, office, garage, house or even a van " as a point of exchange for Amazon packages for customers to pick up and return products at their convenience.

"We carefully look for like-minded business owners who are extremely passionate towards customers and have a burning desire to perform and grow. These businesses work with us as our last-mile delivery partners and help Amazon packages reach the customer's door step," a company spokesperson told the ET.

“We have seen owners of kirana stores, bakeries, flower shops, travel agencies, etc. coming forward to act as delivery and shipment pickup points as they are witnessing higher footfalls and incremental business through their association with this programme," said the spokesperson.

Amazon also piloted Amazon Pickup at Bharat Petroleum's In & Out stores in Delhi and Mumbai last year.

The company now plans to extend the deal to make all the In & Out outlets across the country its pickup points. Currently 35 In & Out stores have already been on-boarded to act as pickup points.

Ratul Ghosh, former head of strategy at eBay India and now an independent consultant, told the ET,"It reduces delivery and pickup costs, the headache of finding addresses and scheduling and so on. These locations could double up as last-mile quality-check, stock-point, even a trust-point for walk-in consumer care.”

However he is doubtful about the fact that Consumers who shop online for the convenience of not having to drive and park and offline retail partners might not be too interested for it.

(Image: Reuters)