The festive season for Flipkart and Amazon has brought a record-breaking rise in traffic and transactions. The first phase of the selling of the festive season concluded on October 21 and during the six-day period, The Big Billion Days or TBBD claimed to witness 110 order placements per second.
Though more than 666 million visits were reported on the website, as per Flipkart’s press release, more than 52 percent of these visits came from tier III cities and beyond.
In terms of sellers’ attendance, the Bengaluru-based business saw a 50 percent rise compared to last year. However, no related indicators, such as the number of sales, gross merchandise value, or GMV, were disclosed by the firm.
With over 3.5 million shipments delivered by its Kirana partners, the Walmart-controlled firm claims to have delivered 10 million shipments in the first five days of the festive sale. The largest-selling categories on the platform were cell phones, apparel, large appliances, electronics, and furniture.
This was the first completely virtual TBBD, as we adapted to the advent of a ‘new normal’ and its success comes on the back of the hard work of our teams across verticals and locations,” said Nandita Sinha, vice president of consumer growth & engagement at Flipkart.
The mobile segment recorded 2X growth in customers visiting the category this year, whereas fashion and large appliances accounted for almost 51% growth in customers from Tier II markets.
Amazon, on the other side, claims more than 1,10,000 sellers have received an order on the platform out of which 66% came from tier II & III cities during The Great India Festival. Similar to Flipkart, top sold categories at Amazon were smartphones, large appliances, and consumer electronics.
“More than 66% of new prime member sign-ups during Prime Early Access were from tier II & III cities,” said Amazon in a press statement.
The festive season sales were critical for both Amazon and Flipkart, hurt by the Covid-19 triggered pandemic. Amazon infused Rs 1,125 crore in internal funding just before their flagship sales, while Flipkart also completed a $1.3 billion round from Walmart, Tencent, and the Qatar Investment Authority.
US-based market analysis company Forrester’s study projected GMV revenues to be approximately $6.5 billion, a 34 percent year-over-year rise compared to last year’s figure, with more than 55-60 million online customers expected to participate in the transaction.
