E-commerce giants Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and other platforms sold products worth $4.8 billion during the first week of the festive season sales, early estimates by research firm, Forrester said. It added that the sales figures are in line with the expectations and that the e-tailers are likely to witness sales worth over $6.5 billion during the month.
A spur in the number of online shoppers and the badly hit offline retail according to analysts led to almost 100% sales growth in 2020 compared to last year when the GMV for the sales was over $3.8billion in the first phase. 50 million shoppers in total are likely to make purchases in the ongoing season. “While we are optimistic about the online channels doing well during this holiday season, some of it will come at the expense of offline retail,” the report said.
The declining consumption trend also seemed to not impact the sales this time around. Vibhor Sahare, CEO and co-founder, ANS Commerce, a firm that helps brands sell online told TNIE that the order value on e-commerce platforms since June has increased during the ongoing festive season. “As we manage brands and their; own websites, in that sense it will not be accurate for me to say that per capita spending has increased because there are many new people who are shopping for the first time. But the average order value has been clearly shifted right I would say from the month May - June onward,” he added.
Flipkart on the conclusion of its Big Billion Days sales event said that it delivered nearly 10 million shipments during the five days of the Big Billion Days Sales, witnessing a 10X jump compared to last year (around 1 million deliveries).This also included 3.5 million deliveries that were made possible through kirana stores which the e-tailer onboarded ahead of its biggest sales season. Although th e-tailer doesn’t reveal its sales figures, a recent Forrester report said that Flipkart may have a slight advantage over rival, Amazon when it comes to mid-priced smartphones which constitutes 34% of the overall festive sales. It added that almost 75% of the sales will occur in the first week (October 15-21) when Big Billion Days Sales are held. Amazon, on the other hand has extended its Great India Sales festival for a month, in a bid to increase the frequency of shopping from its Prime customers.
Snapdeal said that the extensive involvement of sellers from the physical markets, who brought online a vast assortment of popular products - across home, fashion, electronics, mobiles & tablets, daily needs and much more - previously available mostly offline led to the success of its five days sales event. It added that 80% customers chose a regional or a local brand for their Diwali purchases vis-a-vis 20% who opted for national & international brands. The comparable percentage was 65% & 35% respectively last festive season.