Akshay Sahi, VP – Prime & Customer Fulfilment Experience, India and Emerging Countries, Amazon

Amazon Prime is seeing its customer base deepen beyond the metros, with 70 per cent of new members coming from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, even as the company expands its proposition around savings, speed and convenience.

Amazon is on track to double its Prime membership base from 2023 by the end of this year, noted Akshay Sahi, VP – Prime & Customer Fulfilment Experience, India and Emerging Countries, Amazon.

Prime members shop five times more frequently than non-members on Amazon.in, while the top 10 per cent of members save more than eight times their membership cost through savings and benefits. Half of Prime members get back more than five times their membership cost.

Ahead of the Great Indian Festival, Amazon is looking to deepen that value proposition through Prime-only offers. Members will get an additional 5 per cent discount across lakhs of products, while customers who build carts worth ₹2,500 can get ₹250 back, over and above prices offered by sellers and brands.

Akshay Sahi, VP – Prime & Customer Fulfilment Experience, India and Emerging Countries, Amazon, said the expansion into smaller cities reflects the evolution of Prime from a metro-focused proposition into a broader India offering.

“Over the past five years, around two-thirds of our new Prime members have come from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.”

Amazon is also seeing higher shopping frequency among Prime members, with grocery emerging as an important driver of repeat purchases. Sahi said customers who have had a good experience in one category are increasingly willing to explore others, while the combination of convenience and savings further encourages shopping frequency.

The company is stepping up its logistics infrastructure to support the expected festive demand. Amazon said it has invested ₹2,800 crore in its operations network and associate safety and wellbeing in 2026. It has also added 20 fulfilment centres, six sort centres and 150 last-mile delivery stations, while creating more than 1.6 lakh seasonal work opportunities across 400 cities.

Sahi said Amazon’s strategy is to use the increased engagement of Prime members to create value for brands and sellers as well.

“If a Prime member actually chooses your brand, then repeat rates are significantly higher versus when you’re just giving deals to every person and they’re taking it just for the deal.”

The company is also expanding ultra-fast delivery through Amazon Now, which is currently available in 120 cities and is planned to reach 300 cities. Prime members who start using Amazon Now increase their shopping frequency three-fold compared with their own pre-Now shopping patterns.

Sahi said Prime’s expansion is increasingly about delivering value across different customer needs rather than simply offering faster delivery. “Prime is a Bharat phenomenon, not a Metro or rich phenomenon.”

This shift is also reflected in Amazon’s seller ecosystem, with more than 20 lakh sellers on the platform and over 3 lakh sellers joining in the past year.

Published on October 6, 2026