Consumers are winners in Amazon vs Flipkart discount war

With the onset of the festive season, it's raining discounts and even gold bars for customers of Flipkart and Amazon as both these e-tailers are trying to woo shoppers with best deals and grab market share.

Both firms have invested heavily on bringing the best deals for customers across categories like apparel, electronics and household items as well as on logistics to ensure speedy delivery to ensure the customer experience doesn't suffer, analysts said. They added that a significant chunk of the annual sales of e-commerce firms in the country comes during the third quarter of the fiscal, which coincides with the festive season in India.

Flipkart, as part of its 'Big Billion Days' offer, said it sold 10 lakh products within 10 hours of the first day of the sale. On Day 3, it claimed it had sold half a million mobile phones in 10 hours. "While there were initial glitches, the Bengaluru-based company was better prepared for its biggest shopping event of the year.

There will be difficulties when you have a sale the size of what is on the offer but we feel it has been better managed this time," Greyhound CEO and Chief Analyst Sanchit Vir Gogia said. Even though this year, Flipkart has chosen to go app-only for the sale, the numbers have grown significantly. Last year, Flipkart's website crashed during the maiden shopping event.

Amazon, on the other hand, has brought in next-morning delivery for late-night orders as well as the chance to win a kg of gold every day for five days. It claimed that all top deals are getting sold out in less than 30 minutes of going live. Interestingly, Snapdeal has started offering deals on specific categories like electronics and apparels on specific days of the week.

"With the huge surge in sales volumes, over 5 million orders have already been shipped out of Snapdeal until now," the company said in a statement. It has now announced a Monday Home Sale on October 19.