E-commerce major Amazon India on October said sellers on Amazon Great Indian Festival sale had the biggest-ever opening sales with over 1.1 lakh receiving orders during the first 48 hours of the sale. Sales on equated monthly instalments were boosted with over 3.5 lakh phones being sold on EMI.
Amazon's 'Great Indian Festival' started on October 17 and will go on for about a month to coincide with the festive season. Amazon Prime members were provided early access to the sale from October 16. "These 48 hours were the biggest ever for Amazon in its seven-year history. We had created a buildup for the sale for our Amazon sellers…Over 1.1 lakh sellers received orders, and 66 percent of them came from small towns," Amazon India Vice President Manish Tiwary told PTI.
Amazon India, which has over 6.5 lakh sellers on its platform, registered its biggest spike in new customers, with 91 percent of them coming from small towns (beyond the metros and top 40 cities), he added. About 66 percent of new Prime sign-ups were also from small towns like Tawang and Changlang (Arunachal Pradesh), Mokokchung (Nagaland), Baran (Rajasthan), Pudukkottai (Tamil Nadu), Una (Himachal Pradesh) and Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh), Tiwari said.
The trends seen by Amazon India are similar to those witnessed by Flipkart. Walmart-owned Flipkart, which opened its 'Big Billion Days' (BBD) sale on October 16, had said 50 percent of new customers on its platform who shopped on the first day of its sale were from tier-3 cities and beyond. Smaller rival Snapdeal had said nearly 30 percent of the total orders on the first day (October 16) of its sale were from first-time users and nearly 90 percent of orders were from tier II and III towns.
However, none of the players disclosed the volume of orders received so far during their sale. E-commerce companies see a large chunk of their business coming in during the festive sales, and they make significant investments ahead of time to ramp up their capacity to be able to handle the spike in orders.
Festive season sees players holding multiple sale events, timed around Dussehra and Diwali. A report by RedSeer estimates that festive sales this year are expected to almost double and touch USD 7 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) as compared to USD 3.8 billion in the same period last year.
Tiwary said about 1.4 million people had shopped from small and medium businesses (SMBs) on its platform in the 10-day run up to the 'Great Indian Festival'. He added that most of Amazon India's brand partners — right from wireless manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi and OnePlus to electronics players like Asus, Lenovo, HP and appliances makers like LG, Whirlpool– had their biggest ever 48 hours on Amazon .
Also, over 1 lakh customers bought Amazon devices, Echo and Fire TV. "The new language launches (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada) just before Diwali seem to have a high engagement. Early signs show very good engagement on that front…We had a certain plan for the 48 hours and we are ahead of plans on almost every major category," Tiwary said.
"Home decor did well, apparels saw a spike that was well ahead of our plans and ahead of business as usual," he added. Besides, affordability programs saw more than Rs 600 crore worth of credit (across options like EMIs and pay later programmes) being disbursed during Prime Early Access.
"If the first 48 hours is anything to go by, I am delighted on three fronts which are important for us — seller success, consumer acquisition and shopping, and biggest ever day for Prime customers," he said. Fashion e-tailer Myntra, which is a part of Flipkart Group, said 50 percent of shoppers on its platform on first day (October 16) of its sale were from tier II and III cities
"Our 'Big Fashion Festival' has had a fantastic start, with customers shopping for 1.2 million products in the first 12 hours, making it the biggest festive event at Myntra to date. We feel elated with the phenomenal opening response with over 20 lakh customers participating in the Big Fashion Festival so far," Myntra CEO Amar Nagaram said. He added that shoppers in tier II and III cities and towns are likely to outdo their counterparts in big cities, in terms of shopping for fashion, this festive season.
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