Flipkart beats Amazon in first leg of online festive sales; e-tailers clock in total Rs 19,000 crore

Despite the ongoing slowdown in the economy, e-tailers including Amazon and Flipkart have clocked in Rs 19,000 crore value sales in the six-day long festivities which started on 29 September. Homegrown Flipkart led the e-commerce platforms in terms of GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) with its standalone share at over 60%, consultancy firm RedSeer said. “Strong performance across categories including mobiles was the key reason for Flipkart leadership. This was in turn enabled by strong value prices, high EMIs adoption and diverse selection across categories, all marketed aggressively to reach customers widely,” RedSeer said. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon had over 28% share in the overall festive season sales. With Amazon and Flipkart getting over 90% of the market share in online shopping, the festive sales are largely becoming a two-player play.

While online commerce platforms have concluded their first leg of festive season sales, the month-long festivities are expected to bring in Rs 39,000 crore worth sales for e-tailers owing to the rage for online shopping. “Consumer sentiment on online shopping remains bullish,” said Anil Kumar, Founder, and CEO, RedSeer Consulting, even when the macroeconomic factors are challenging. Tuning to the same, RedSeer had downgraded its earlier forecast of e-tailers recording Rs 45,000 worth sales.

This year’s sales were driven by Bharat customers (people residing in rural areas, tier 2 and tier 3 cities) as they are actively migrating to online platform due to value proposition. “The biggest theme of the festive season was value shopping as indicated by large chunk of customers from tier 2 and tier 3 cities”, RedSeer said. Other than value proposition, these customers were also attracted by wide selection across categories and affordability initiatives.

Further, mobile category dominated online sales with about 55% of GMV coming from this category. In fact, customers saved up and held onto mobile phone shopping till festive season sales.

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