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Amazon’s ‘Great Indian Festival’ to kick off on October 4
Amazon did not specify the closing date for the Great Indian Festival, while Flipkart has said its sale will run from October 7-12.
Amazon India’s Great Indian Festival kicks off on October 4, beginning the annual battle of discount sales, with Flipkart opening its own Big Billion Days just three days later.
Amazon did not specify the closing date for the Great Indian Festival, while Flipkart has said its sale will run from October 7-12. Both companies have been expanding warehousing capacity, adding sellers and introducing more regional languages.
Amazon expects three-quarters of its first-time customers during the sale to come from smaller towns, India vice-president Manish Tiwary said. “Typically, most of them enter with fashion and grocery segments. To address demand from tier-II, III locations and beyond, we added 40% incremental warehousing or storage space this year. We have added two more regional languages—Marathi and Bengali—that customers can use while shopping,” Tiwary said in an interview.
Annual festival sales online are expected to rise 23% to $9 billion this year from the $7.4 billion gross merchandise value (GMV) on e-commerce platforms a year ago, RedSeer Consulting said on Wednesday. This is, however, slower than the record 48% growth seen last year, when physical sales plunged due to the fear of covid and related restrictions.
Amazon said the event would see over 1,000 product launches, with over 850,000 participating sellers from 450 cities. Of these, 75,000 sellers will be local shops showcasing products under programmes such as Amazon Launchpad, Amazon Saheli and Amazon Karigar, besides Indian and global brands across categories.
Tiwary said schemes like ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) and no-cost EMI will enable more affordability in shopping, along with the acceleration in the number of local shops on the e-commerce platform.
“We expect electronics and grocery to do well, along with fashion. We see a little bit of renewed interest in fast fashion and ethnic wear after customers predominantly bought work-from-home wear for a while,” he added.
A recent study commissioned by Amazon India and conducted by Nielsen found sellers on Amazon were optimistic about this festive season, and 98% of respondents said technology adoption and e-commerce had benefited their business. More than 78% hoped to find new customers, while 71% expected greater sales (71%), and another 71% predicted business recovery.
RedSeer also estimates e-commerce firms will clock sales worth $4.8 billion in the first week of festive sales this year, a 30% increase from 2020. E-commerce firms clocked almost $3.7 billion in GMV in the first week of festive sales last year. The consulting predicts that almost 55-60% of online shoppers will be from smaller towns and cities.
Mobile and electronics will continue to remain popular shopping categories, contributing to almost 73% of GMV this year as well, estimates show.
