Last night Amazon silently made it’s presence marked by making amazon.in live. This comes as no surprise to the industry watchers, as Amazon had made its intentions clear by launching Junglee.com in 2012. And the point of speculation was only around – When will Amazon make itself available in its original avatar.

Today, Amazon has made itself live with just two categories – Books & Movies, over its Marketplace model with a decent listing size. So, one thing becomes clear that Amazon will fight in the e-commerce space with its Marketplace and Merchant tie-ups. I am aware of the fact that Amazon has been in conversation with Merchants pretty aggressively since past few months. They have been in constant touch with several B2B service providers to serve those merchants  and making robust quality and process checks to match their US counterpart service levels.

All this sounds good to me. And as a end customer I have more option to choose from, which is a good sign for the ever growing e-commerce market. However there are some of the questions which comes to me as an Industry observer and I am still not able to find answers, at the best I am guessing…..

#1. What happens to Junglee.com? If one looks at Amazon.in and Junglee.com, they look same, however the merchant tie-ups are different (with some over lapping merchants). Currently Junglee.com’s merchant list is huge, for obvious reason. What my concern is that operating two similar marketplaces doesn’t serve the purpose. In fact I have a serious belief that Junglee.com and Amazon.in would eventually merge and operate from Amazon.in. However this would take some time because of the paperwork involved with each merchant and associated tie-up change-overs for each merchant. But it certainly looks as a most logical thing for Amazon to do at this point of time.

#2. Who else is coming? And How soon? Amazon’s entry into the market makes things clearer – The entry barriers for foreign players have been re-designed and this makes their business possible in India. Now, this might open the flood-gates into the e-commerce arena. We would soon see some global biggies operating here. My guess is that soon we will see WalMart, Target, TESCO, etc. I am making one more courageous statement – These retailing/e-tailing big boys will enter the market in 2013 itself.

#3. What might happen to Indian companies? Flipkart, SnapDeal, Myntra, etc. Well, Nothing. Nothing in the short run of 3-6 months. The big boys of Indian E-Commerce, Flipkart, SnapDeal, Myntra would be able to survive while burning money in short run, but beyond that time-frame, we would see at least 1-2 casualties in the top 5 Indian e-Commerce companies list. In the longer run, seeping into year 2014, we will see a huge number of smaller companies dying while looking out for funding. The current big-boys (Flipkart and likes) would bring further modifications to their business model and chances are very high that some of them will simply shock/surprise the market.

#4. Any changes in the Investor sentiment ? Well, current sentiments are anyway not good. And most of the financial activity (Mergers & Acquisitions) is happening around those companies which are interlinked because of their common investors and common funds. Anyone looking for external funding is anyway struggling, and will have to struggle at least for a year more. The situation gets worse in the wake of the reality that Amazon and likes are coming into the market, which actually hampers the growth possibilities for Flipkart and likes. Investment sentiment certainly goes down, and will remain so until Amazon and others settle down in next 12 months or so. Expect bigger investments in Indian e-Commerce businesses only after June or July 2014.

#5. What changes for the Customer and the Merchants? One thing is clear – Amazon sets a lot of ground rules for the Industry and will fix the loose ends by its sheer muscle power, meaning they will not burn money the way Indian biggies have burnt (COD, Returns, Discount war, etc). So as a customer we will see a lot of changes. And as a merchant listed on Marketplaces, one thing is sure with the addition of one more option the merchants should be feeling happier. However, there is a cost attached to this new affiliation – Amazon has created a robust quality check for the merchants while they are enrolling. So, merchants need to get more disciplined or lose a huge opportunity offered by these marketplaces.

My final thoughts…..When established names like Amazon enter into a market, they enter with a refined and educated approach. Their experimentation phase is already behind them, and they come with a determined approach. Their whole approach is expected to do good to the whole eco-system – The institutions and processes will get refined, merchants will get disciplined, and customers will be more educated towards global standards. So, I am happy that Amazon has entered the Indian market, and it will sure strengthen the Indian e-Commerce story.