The six day long festive season sale, which started on October 16, is expected to have garnered $4.8 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), according to consultancy firm Forrester Research, with Flipkart seeing 110 orders on an average every second. The sale was mostly led by strong demand for smartphones, analysts told Moneycontrol.
While Walmart-owned Flipkart hasn’t shared its GMV numbers, it said over 50 percent of the 666 million footfalls during the six day period came from Tier III and smaller cities.
Amazon, which is running a month long sale this year, didn’t share any data for the last five day period. Its sale started a day later than rival Flipkart. The management, however, stated that during the first 48 hours, the top sold categories were smartphones, large appliances and consumer electronics, with leading brands OnePlus, Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi making record sales.
Snapdal, which also ran a five day sale during the said period, said sellers from smaller cities grabbed 70 percent of Diwali orders, with users across over 90 percent of Indian towns placing their orders.
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“Smartphone as a category has done well with buyers opting for phone upgrades given the new launches and steep discounts. Clothing has still not picked up and is expected to remain a laggard this festive season,” Sanjeev Kumar, an analyst with US-based research firm, Forrester, told Moneycontrol.
Flipkart said that even after the Big Billion Days — its flagship sale concludes on October 21, it expects consumer demand to continue going forward. This happens at a time when Amazon continues to run its flagship sale Great Indian Festival for the entire month.
“Flipkart’s aim this festive season has been able to bring resilience back to the community. The remarkable enthusiasm from consumers has ushered in green shoots of recovery for everyone across the value chain. TBBD 2020 has been a celebration of sellers, artisans, kiranas and wish masters, who have delivered unmatched value to our consumers. Revival in demand and resurgence of consumption is expected to remain even after TBBD, as we continue to uplift the entire ecosystem,” said Nandita Sinha, Vice President, Customer Growth and Engagement, Flipkart.
Flipkart also claimed to have witnessed a 1.5 times growth in the number of transacting sellers on its platform compared to last year. The number of crorepati and lakhpati sellers rose 1.5 and 1.7 times, respectively. The company, however, didn’t share the number of sellers participating in the event.
In the first five days, Flipkart claimed to have delivered 10 million shipments, with over 3.5 million shipments delivered by its kirana partners across categories such as mobiles, fashion and electronics, among others.
This year’s sale also witnessed an over 55 percent increase in digital payments transactions on Flipkart, with a sharp increase in the new to digital customer base. The company’s first ever partnership with Paytm for the festive sale contributed to three-fold growth across low ticket sized purchases.
EMI options and pay later were enablers of credit for customers, with pay later customers clocking in seven times higher spends and EMIs showing 1.7 times higher adoption in the sale.
The company witnessed a rise of two times in customers visiting the mobiles category this Big Billion Dollar sale compared to the year before. The premium smartphone segment saw a growth of 3.2 times, led by Apple, Google and Samsung phones.
In the fashion category, the company sold over 16 million products by over 40,000 unique brands.
Interestingly, large appliances sale, which is predominantly a large ticket category, was driven by Tier III customers, with around half the demand coming from this region. One in every 35 people was a small office or business owner.
The electronics category witnessed two-fold growth year-on-year in laptops and desktops, followed by audio, Internet of Things (IoT), cameras, and tablets.
Work from the home furniture segment witnessed the highest growth in the furniture category with Flipkart setting up almost 50,000 work from home (WFH) desks across the country.
