In a major move to break the language barrier for online shopping and expand eCommerce access to the next 200 – 300 million customers, ahead of the festive season, Amazon is launching amazon.in shopping experience in four new Indian languages – Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. With this launch, Amazon.in customers can now discover great deals & discounts, read detailed product information, manage their account information, place and pay for their orders including bill payments, recharges, money transfers, track their orders and view order history in the language of their preference. Amazon customers can select their preferred language in a few simple steps across Android and iOS apps, mobile and desktop sites.
The launch of Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu, Tamil shopping experience on amazon.in follows the widely adopted Hindi shopping experience that was launched in 2018. Hundreds of thousands of Amazon customers from Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh have since switched to the Hindi shopping experience. In the past five months, the adoption of Hindi shopping experience has grown by 3X.
To launch Amazon.in in these new Indian languages, the company worked with expert linguists to develop an accurate and comprehensible experience in each of the languages. The team has chosen commonly used terms over perfectly translated words to make the shopping experience authentic, easily understandable and seamless for customers. Customers will find the most common words that are actually used in their daily lives being used on Amazon.in in all six languages that include Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu in addition to English.
Kishore Thota, Director, Customer Experience and Marketing, Amazon India said, “We have been working on introducing multiple ways of making shopping accessible to all customers – wherever they may be and whatever the preferences may be. Following the Hindi launch with these four languages is a major milestone in that journey.” Thota added, “This is in addition to various solutions that we introduced to reach a larger base of customers through video and voice based experiences that make consumption of information easier and interaction a lot more natural. These languages launch is a natural step in our journey of bringing amazon and its benefits of selection and convenience to every single Indian. We are super excited to do this ahead of the upcoming festive season.”
Amazon has been innovating to expand the e-commerce opportunity to both customers and businesses in the areas of Vernacular, Voice and Video enabled initiatives for the past few years. In March this year, Alexa was introduced on the Amazon shopping app for Android devices to help users shop using voice commands. Amazon Alexa, a cloud-based voice service that powers Echo range of smart speakers, also understands proper nouns in various languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu etc. With the launch of Alexa in Hindi, customers can ask questions and interact with Alexa in Hindi or Hinglish, in addition to English.
Furthermore, Amazon Prime Video makes titles available in Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi and Bengali in addition to English. Users can browse through Prime Video experience in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu in addition to English. Authors can self-publish their work on Kindle Direct Publishing in five Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati in addition to English.
In 2019, Amazon launched an Automated Messaging Assistant in Hindi. Amazon has also added video summaries to help customers get a quick overview of the product and an immersive shopping experience. Customers can also speak to Amazon Customer Service executives in 5 Indian languages including English, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.
Amazon will continue to evolve the experience to add more shopping features in the four new languages, helping hundreds of millions of customers enjoy the benefits of shopping online this festive season in the language of their choice and convenience.
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