Flipkart Claims Final Victory Over Amazon This Festive Season; Says They Sold Upto 80% More Goods By ‘Value’

It seems that high value goods such as smartphones and LCDs may have finally won over low value mass products such as Hing (asafoetida) and Churan (finely powdered spices).

Amazon, which rode on the ecommerce victory wave based on their bumper sales of low value products during Dussera and Diwali season, now finds themselves on a backfoot as Flipkart has claimed final victory – A victory based on their internal data and gauged by the value of the goods rather than the quantity.

In a stunning comeback, Flipkart CEO Binny Bansal has claimed that they have sold upto 80% more goods in value, compared with Amazon, which sold more goods in quantity.

This way, Flipkart has directly informed all ecommerce analysts that they are still #1 player in this market, and not Amazon.

Note here, that Bansal’s recent salvo was fired after taking into account Flipkart’s sale along with Myntra and Jabong. Thus, it’s Amazon vs Flipkart-Myntra-Jabong now.

Besides, Bansal has also claimed that they now control 75% market share in the online apparals category, and has double the share of Amazon in electronics and smartphones niche.

Overall, as per various estimations, Flipkart sold goods worth Rs 5000 crore in October, meanwhile Amazon’s internal data shows they have sold around Rs 4000-4500 crore worth of goods.

Patting their own shoulders, Bansal said, “‘The wide lead we have established during this month proves that a home-grown startup can successfully take on a 22-year global company (which) is pouring money to buy market share”

Amazon has rubbished these claims made by Bansal, as they described it mere speculation and rumors. A statement from Amazon said, ‘’We track customer focused metrics from reputed and independent third party industry sources like SimilarWeb, App Annie and comScore and believe we are leaders in all relevant metrics,”

The Hing Churan Battle: Story So Far

Flipkart’s latest claims is the third in series on the on-going hing-churan battle of Indian ecommerce.

During the end of last month’s festive season, Flipkart claimed to have sold Rs 1400 crore worth of products in a single day, whereas Amazon claimed to have sold 15 million units against Flipkart’s 15.5 million units.

The first shot was fired by Flipkart, when they said that Amazon achieved such high numbers because they sold low cost products such as hing-churan during the festive season.

Amazon fired back, claiming that the path of Indian ecommerce goes via hing and churan, which are low-cost but essential commodities of the common man.

Flipkart’s latest claim to victory based on the ‘value’ of the goods rather than the ‘quantity’ has once again ignited the hing-churan debate, and has opened up a new front to debate the realities.

Will Amazon come out with real numbers, from their internal systems to debunk Flipkart’s claims? Or will they now launch another ‘festive sales’ to beat Flipkart and claim real dominance?

We will keep you updated as more details come in..