Flipkart Grocery operations suspended over 'overwhelming' Big Billion Day response

A banner on Flipkart’s website said “Please come back tomorrow…we are overwhelmed by your response.”

E-commerce giant Flipkart suspended its grocery operations on October 10 to focus on other divisions and categories which were seeing an overwhelming interest during the ongoing Big Billion Days (BBD) sale event.

The BBD is Flipkart’s flagship sale event and clashes with Amazon’s Great Indian Festival (GIF). With a slew of launches, especially on the loyalty programmes side, the two giants have been trying to be one up against each other in a hotly contested space.

Festive season sales are crucial for e-commerce companies as they account for about 50 percent of their annual gross merchandise value (GMV). Analysts have predicted that sales will increase by about 20 percent year-on-year (YoY) in 2023 to touch Rs 90,000 crore. Early data from several players have shown companies are on a strong footing, with categories like TVs and appliances growing multifold.

As a result, other categories – with relatively lower margins – had taken a backseat, like Flipkart’s grocery division. While Grocery as a category is key to increasing the frequency of purchases, the margins are in single digits, unlike other categories.

A banner on Flipkart’s website said “Please come back tomorrow…we are overwhelmed by your response.” A Flipkart spokesperson also confirmed to Moneycontrol that grocery services were suspended across geographies.

"Flipkart Grocery has received strong demand during the early access and first two days of the Big Billion Days sale. To ensure we continue to provide our customers with the wide selection of products available on the platform, we will now take new orders starting at midnight (00:00 AM) on October 11,” a company spokesperson said.

“We stay committed to providing our customers with the most fulfilling, value-led shopping experiences," the company statement added.

Moneycontrol had recently reported that Flipkart had shuffled top roles within the company and Smrithi Ravichandran, who was earlier the vice president (VP), and head of Grocery, has now been moved to head Mobiles, a key category for the group.

As part of the shuffle – a regular exercise at Flipkart – Ravichandran’s role was internally filled by Hari Kumar G, a Flipkart veteran who has spent nearly 11 years at the company and was earlier the VP and head of Large Appliances, Electronics, and Private Brands at Flipkart.