Clash of Titans! Amazon's Great Indian Festival & Flipkart's Big Billion Days sale to begin on Oct 10

Fervent shoppers will have their hands full this October with the flagship sales of e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart -- Great Indian Festival and Big Billion Days, respectively, slated to kick off.

Although an annual affair, this year's sale is unique for the customers and challenging for the companies. For the first time, both the players will start off the sale on the same date. Amazon’s Great India Festival will be on from October 10 to 15, while Flipkart’s Big Billion Days Sale begin on October 10. It ends just a day short of Amazon’s, on October 14.

This means shoppers get the opportunity to compare prices instantly and take their pick. Until last year, the sales would be held on different dates leaving customers wondering if they should buy or wait for the other to reveal its discounted prices on certain products.

The sales hosted during the festive period of October-November by the online majors every year generate a majority of their annual sales. With the dates overlapping, this year the competition is going to be tougher.

It is no surprise then that the players are trying out unique ways to attract customers to their portals. Amazon, for example, decked up a four-bedroom house in Delhi’s posh Defence Colony with 1,652 products from across its website to highlight the range of merchandise available on its platform.

“One of the things we take pride in is the kind of selection we offer. We have 172 million different products that we are offering on Amazon.in. Last year the same number around Diwali was 160 million,” said Manish Tiwari, Vice President, Category Management, Amazon India.

“Between last Diwali and this Diwali, we have added close to 7 million cubic feet of space. Last year we had 13 million cubic feet. Currently, we are running slightly ahead at 20 million cubic space,” he added even as an Alexa device suddenly butt in, “AC set to 18 degrees.”

However, there is little information available of the sales numbers that the rivals are targeting this year.

"I do not look at GMV. We work really hard to get the right selection, affordability, EMIs, exchange program and we work really hard to get it to the customers quickly. That is what we are focused on,” Tiwari said.

Consulting firm Redseer though has some estimates. It estimates the companies to generate sales worth around $3 billion during this year’s festive season sale.

Both the companies are also betting big on various payments offers. They are offering cardless credit with credit line up to Rs 60,000. In additions, Amazon Prime and Flipkart Plus customers will also get exclusive early access to the sale.

Amazon gets around 65 percent of its orders from Tier 2 and smaller cities in India. Earlier this month, the company also launched a Hindi version of its mobile app to deepen its presence in the smaller towns.

It has also almost tripled its exclusive models in categories such as television, refrigerators and washing machines to 200 as compared to 70 models last year.

“In every category, our selection would be multiples of what we sold last year,” said Tiwari.

When it comes to fashion, the Flipkart Group claims to be a clear market leader with 80 percent market share. It owns two niche fashion portals Jabong and Myntra.

Amazon, however, claims it has the largest online fashion store with respect to the selection of products.

“Under fashion is clothing, shoes, watches, jewelry, bags and so on. In each of those, we are the single largest place. When you look at the site we are the most visited e-commerce site month after month. One out of three people who come out on the site on a daily basis is exploring a fashion product,” Arun Sirdeshmukh, Business head at Amazon Fashion told Moneycontrol.