Adoption of Warehouse Automation Technologies in Indian E-Commerce

The warehousing and logistics industry of India is currently experiencing one of the biggest structural changes in decades. What used to be mere storage systems are now being reconstructed as technology- enabled fulfillment centers on the ground and the rate of change is increasing. The warehouse has long since outgrown its previous function as a cost center as the e-commerce market in India is set to pass USD 200 billion by 2027. It has become the core of the competitive landscape in companies, with a direct impact on speed of delivery, accuracy of the order, the type of brand experience that customers have learned to expect. This paper will examine the adoption of warehouse automation technologies in the e-commerce industry in India, and attempt to learn what is motivating the adoption as well as what is impeding the adoption. The study is based on a mixed-method study, which consisted of 103 respondents of e-commerce retailers, logistics service providers, and technology vendors. The results provide a rather clear image of the current state of affairs: such technologies as barcode scanning (92.2%), conveyor systems (90.3%), and Warehouse Management Systems (89.3%) have become a standard practice of most players. However, more complex features, such as AI/ML-based demand forecasting (4.9%), robotics and AGVs (5.8%), and IoT integration (6.8%), are much less widespread.