Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos will visit India on January 15 for a tour packed with meetings with industrialists, company executives and heads of small businesses.

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Over three days, Bezos will review and plan Amazon's operations in the country. Bezos is also due to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other government officials as well as industry leaders such as Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, according to people familiar with his itinerary.

Bezos is expected to attend an Amazon event for entrepreneurs, sellers in Delhi, they said, requesting anonymity. He will also participate in a "mega Prime Video event" and has a meet and greet with Bollywood stars.

At the Prime Video event in Mumbai, a fireside chat with Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan has been planned.

Bezos is keen to get a first-hand view of India, given its strategic importance to Amazon's operations, one of the persons quoted above said. The trip has been in the works for some time now.

The meeting with the Prime Minister has not been finalised yet, however.

Bezos will also attend an event known as SMBhav focussing on small and medium businesses in India on January 15-16 New Delhi.

India remains in focus in 2020

For Bezos and Amazon, India will be a priority market in 2020.

Amazon dominates the online retail landscape in India with Flipkart, it's rival. Earlier this week, Amazon Retail India Private Limited (ARIPL) closed a deal with Kishore Biyani’s Future Consumer Limited (FCL) for the distribution of the latter's portfolio of brands online. Through this agreement, Future Consumer will build an online channel and offer brands to millions of Amazon’s customers.

Bezos is coming to India when the online retail market is galloping. India’s retail industry, valued at Rs 66.39 lakh crore, or $950 billion, in 2018, is expected to cross $1 trillion this year, according to India Brand Equity Foundation. Online retail sales are forecast to touch Rs 4.19 lakh crore, or $60 billion, this year.

According to Morgan Stanley, the online retail market will be worth $200 billion by 2027. India currently has nearly 700 million internet users.

But running an operation is not easy. The government tightened rules for e-commerce marketplaces with foreign investment last year, preventing such platforms from offering products of sellers in which they hold a stake. It also prohibited exclusive marketing arrangements among other clauses. Companies such as Amazon were forced to restructure their joint ventures to ensure compliance.

Bezos is expected to discuss regulatory matters in his meetings with government officials.

Major market, major concern

Bezos’ attendance at SMBhav will be keenly watched. Small and medium enterprises have been complaining against ecommerce giants, accusing them of destroying their businesses by providing deep discounts. Several traders have complained to the government that Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart offer deep discounts and engage in unfair business practices.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has said that it has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give them a chance to brief him before his proposed meeting with Bezos.

According to the confederation, it will use the opportunity to appraise the Prime Minister about the "factual position on how Amazon and Flipkart are destroying the business of small traders of the country".

Rivalry between the world's richest man and Asia's richest man

Amazon is also bracing for competition from Asia's richest man. Reliance Retail, the retail arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, has begun sending invites to Jio telecom users for registering on a new venture named JioMart.

Calling itself 'Desh ki Nayi Dukaan', JioMart will, for now, cater to online shoppers in the suburban Mumbai areas of Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan but will expand later.

JioMart will give its users options to shop from 50,000-plus grocery products, free home delivery with no minimum order value, no-questions-asked return policy and an express delivery promise, the Mint newspaper report added.

First Published:Jan 10, 2020 9:33 PM IST