E-commerce companies kicked off the festive season sale with a bang, with market leaders Flipkart and Snapdeal reporting six-digit sales figures within hours after the launch.
While Flipkart reported sale of a million products with 6 million customer visits in the first 10 hours on Tuesday, Snapdeal claimed it was on track to achieve $100 million in sales of just electronic goods on Monday.
“The trends indicate a 10x growth in orders, 17x rise in sales with 5x growth in customers who shopped in today’s sale,” Snapdeal said in a statement.
Flipkart said it was selling 25 items every second on the first day of its Big Billion sale, which has been extended to five days this year from just one day last year.
Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai accounted for the maximum traffic, though both companies did not reveal specific numbers.
“It is great to see 1.6 million app installs in the last two days – which is a great indicator, that India has been preparing well for ‘The Big Billion Days’,” said Mukesh Bansal, head of commerce platform, Flipkart.
The combined gross merchandise value (GMV) of ecommerce platforms in 2014-15 was estimated at $10.5 billion, according to KPMG. GMV, which is emerging as the primary metric to gauge valuations of e-tailers, is the worth of goods traded through the portals.
According to industry estimates, e-tailers will spend Rs 2,000 crore on marketing and promotional schemes this year to lure consumers during the festive season.
{{/usCountry}}According to industry estimates, e-tailers will spend Rs 2,000 crore on marketing and promotional schemes this year to lure consumers during the festive season.
{{/usCountry}}Wallet service provider Paytm, which also has its own marketplace, said it expects festival sales to improve 3 to 4 times compared to the normal period. The company currently registers 75 million transactions a month, said Nitin Mishra, vice-president, payment products, Paytm. It is expected to kick off its festive sale bonanza in the second half of this month.