Several vendors on e-commerce platforms are raking in the moola in the middle of the on-going holiday season. Flipkart and Amazon India said that sellers’ lakhs, including major sections of Tier-2 cities and beyond, had collected orders on their sites during the early days of the festive sale.
The Walmart-backed Flipkart announced that over 70 dealers on its website had turned crorepati, and over 10,000 had been lakhpati in the first three days of the Big Billion Days (TBBD) launch. Flipkart added that over three lakh sellers had collected orders within the first three days of its ‘Big Billion Days’ sale. Of these, about 60% of the sellers came from Tier-2 cities and beyond.
The Bengaluru-based company said that the two-day growth of sellers equaled their rise over the six days of last year’s auction, showcasing a steep rise in market demand across India.
The selling of Flipkart’s Huge Billion Days started on October 16. It reported that in the course of October 16 and 17, Flipkart Wholesale and Best Price stores witnessed more than 3,000 retailers and 18,000 Kirana operating in the apparel, accessories, and grocery categories.
Flipkart said that through Early Access and the three days of TBBD 2020, the platform witnessed a 1.5X increase in expenditure per customer over EMIs and ‘Flipkart Pay Later’ transactions.
While cities such as Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata continue to lead the pack, Tier-3 cities and beyond accounted for nearly 60 percent of demand this year, he added.
Fashion e-tailer Myntra, part of the Flipkart Company, said that on the first day (October 16) of its sale, 50 percent of shoppers were from Tier 2 and 3 locations.
“Our ‘Massive Fashion Festival’ has had a great launch, with customers shopping for 1,2 million items in the first 12 hours, making it the biggest festive event in Myntra to date. We are delighted with a tremendous opening response with over 20 lakh customers participating in the Massive Fashion Festival so far,” said Amar Nagaram, CEO of Myntra.
Meanwhile, Flipkart’s rival-Amazon claimed that its first-two days of the Great Indian Festival saw “the biggest opening ever for its vendors and brand partner”
The Seattle-based online giant added that over 1.1 lakh sellers had received orders in 48 hours. Although more than 5,000 sellers had reported sales worth Rs 10 lakh in the first 48 hours.
The selling of Amazon’s Great Indian Festival started on October 16 for prime owners. It became accessible to all from October 17th.
Amazon India, which has more than 6.5 lakh sellers on its platform, has registered its biggest spike in new customers, with 91% coming from small towns (beyond the metro and the top 40 cities), Amazon India’s vice president, Manish Tiwary, told PTI.
Some 66 per cent of the latest Prime sign-ups were also from small towns such as Tawang and Changlang (Arunachal Pradesh), Mokokchung (Nagaland), Baran (Rajasthan), Pudukkottai (Tamil Nadu), Una (Himachal Pradesh), and Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh), Tiwari added.
He added that in the 10-day run-up to the Great Indian Festival, about 10 Lakh people had shopped from small and medium-sized enterprises ( SMEs) on their website.
In comparison, another online shopping platform, Snapdeal said that 65 percent of orders put in the sale so far has been received by sellers based outside the top five metropolitan areas of the world.
