Smaller towns are contributing in a big way to growth in demand for online products from Flipkart and Amazon during their flagship festive sales.
While Flipkart claimed that 45% of customer demand came from Tier 3 and smaller cities, Amazon said number of sellers receiving an order from Tier 2 and 3 cities jumped by 21% over the last year.
The data is based on the trends reported by the two companies on the initial days of their respective flagship sales.
The two companies launched their festive sales -- The Big Billion Days and The Great Indian Festival on October 3. Amazon also gave early to Prime subscribers on Oct 2.
"This year, TBBD has started off seeing upbeat participation by customers and sellers. E-commerce is clearly gaining increasing acceptance among the masses, and it is evident that user-friendly technical and financial constructs are helping to drive its adoption. We will continue, in the years ahead, to do what we do best – offer products that deliver the best value, and introduce features and solutions that make our platform more accessible and affordable for customers," said Nandita Sinha, Vice President, Customer and Growth, Flipkart.
Apple 12 and Apple 12 Mini stood out as the favourite smartphone models, accounting for most of the two-lakh Apple iPhone 12 devices sold so far on Flipkart.
The company reported significant demand, for wireless earphones, sports shoes, outdoor wear, and men's clothing.
It claimed that sellers across 124 new cities such as Hingna (Maharashtra), Baghpat (Uttar Pradesh) and Atringal (Kerala) transacted in the first 24 hours.
Grooming, mobile protection, home furnishing, household and women ethnic contemporary categories stood out as Top categories for marketplace sellers.
The company also said it has onboarded over one lakh kiranas to date for its last-mile delivery program and has significantly expanded its supply chain across the country.
“Amazon Great Indian Festival 2021, our month long festive celebrations has gotten off to a strong start, with millions of customers buying from small sellers listed on Amazon.in, including local shops, start-ups and brands, artisans , weavers and SMB’s," said Manish Tiwary, Vice President, Amazon India.
During Prime Early Access the number of local shops participating in the event more than doubled compared to last year. "We also saw a 60% increase in sellers who received their highest ever single day sales year-on-year on Amazon.in number of sellers receiving an order from Tier 2 and 3 cities jumped by 21% and 16% more sellers received orders over last year," he said.
Amazon also said that even 2 out of 3 new Prime sign-ups are coming from Tier 2 and 3 cities.
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