Two years after it entered the market with a limited number of items for sale, Amazon has finally opened a full online store in Singapore that promises a wider selection to compete with regional e-commerce rivals Lazada and Shopee.
The Amazon.sg store, open today, will start offering new gadgets such as the popular Kindle e-book reader, along with other items like groceries, books, toys and kitchen tools.
Users will also be able to access the store with their PCs, which is handier than having to scroll through hundreds of items on a small screen on the mobile app.
That had been the only way to buy things from the local Amazon store since it opened in 2017. In that time, the company only delivered items to Singapore shoppers through its Prime service.
Costing S$2.99 a month, it offered a two-hour delivery service (with a minimum order of S$40) and access to the company’s video streaming service, though the catalog was substantially thinner than the United States version.
Now, these Prime customers will enjoy free one-day local delivery with no minimum spend. They can also expect free international shipping with orders over S$60.
For folks who don’t fancy paying a monthly subscription, delivery is free for eligible orders of over S$40, though they have to wait two to three days for the items to reach them.
That might not work for folks who want fast delivery of some vegetables or meat they plan on cooking on the same day.
However, the delayed delivery shouldn’t be as big an issue if you’re buying a solid state drive or a Kindle, which still ships from the US for now.
Late to the game, Amazon won’t have things easy. Rivals Lazada and Shopee have been busy signing up merchants to sell on their e-commerce stores over the years.
The same goes for the Southeast Asia region, which the American company must surely be considering after planting a flag in Singapore, since the city-state is too small a market for it to spend too much of its resources on.
