Amazon Creates 21,000 Crorepati Sellers; Flipkart Churns Out 70 Billion Views [Festive Season Face-Off]

The biggest online festive sales period in the country is over, and we witnessed some massive price drops and huge discounts at India’s two of the biggest e-commerce platforms, Flipkart and Amazon. Both the giants locked horns to take the online market by storm.

Backed by marque bank discounts and additional discounts, a wide range of products were available at dirt-cheap prices on both.

Flipkart Big Billion Days and Amazon Great Indian Festival both had a wide range of categories on sale with some steep discounts on best selling products. Now with the initial results out, let’s see which of the two had an edge over the other. 

Flipkart Big Billion Days 2019: Where They Stand?

The Flipkart Big Billion Days 2019 kicked off on September 29 and continued till October 4. The company offered instant price cuts and additional bank discount with Axis and ICICI Bank. Flipkart also offered a bunch of credit options as Buy Now Pay Later, No-Cost EMI and more.

These are the data shared by Flipkart itself:

• Almost 50 percent growth in the number of new customers compared to 2018 Big Billion Days

•  More than 50 percent Flipkart Plus shoppers at the 2019 Big Billion Days are from Tier 2 cities and beyond

• Purchases from Tier 3 cities grew by 100 percent YoY 

• Transactions via Flipkart’s credit options increased by 70 percent

• More than 40 percent of the transacting sellers at the Big Billion Days 2019 are from Tier 2 and beyond

• Every 2 orders out of 5 orders at least 2019 Big Billion Days are from Flipkart Plus customers

• EMIs, Flipkart Pay Later and Cardless Credit increased by 70 percent at Big Billion Days 2019 YoY

• More than 20 models sold over 100K units at the Big Billion days

• 2.5X increase in adoption of product exchange

• 1 in 2 TVs, 1 in 3 washing machines, 1 in 5 refrigerators and 1 in 5 ACs  bought in India during these 6 days were all from Flipkart

Amazon Great Indian Festival 2019: Where They Stand?

The Amazon Great Indian Festival 2019 kicked off during the same period as the Flipkart sale on September 29 and continued till October 4. The company offered instant price cuts and additional bank discount with SBI cards. Amazon offered special additional Amazon Pay cashback along with bank discount with exclusive offers for Prime members.

These are the data shared by Amazon India itself:

• 99.4 percent of India’s postal codes placed an order at the 2019 Amazon Great Indian Festival

• Amazon.in in Hindi saw a 2.5X increase in traffic and 3.6X increase in unit sales

• 62 percent of customers who placed an orders for appliances had them delivered and installed within 36 hours

• 50 percent of the Prime members placed their order in the first 2 days of the Amazon sale, and had them delivered within 48 hours

• More than 600 flights delivered packages for customers

• Millionaire sellers including Crorepati sellers exceeded 21,000

• Fashion sales grew nearly by 5X

• 15X growth in Smartphone sales led by top brands: Samsung, OnePlus, Apple, Xiaomi and Vivo

• Large Appliances saw 8X growth in sales with nearly half the sales coming from lower tier cities

• 50 percent customers purchased appliances on EMI with every 1 in 5 customers exchanging their old appliances

• 1 out of 3 eligible products were purchased using programs as exchange, EMIs and Bank cash backs

• Over 70 percent of the customers who availed credit at the 2019 Amazon Great Indian Festival were from lower tier towns

Flipkart vs Amazon: Who Won The 2019 Festive Sale Battle?

While both Flipkart and Amazon experienced a huge growth in sales and purchases, they didn’t clear out the numbers of transactions or an estimated overall transaction value. According to Redseer, the overall gross sales stand at USD 3.7 billion (around Rs 24,000 crore) between September 29 to October 4.

That’s a massive jump of around 60-65 percent YoY. More than 32 million shoppers bought something online during the festive sale between September 29 and October 4.

The total number of buyers online are up by nearly 60 per cent YoY, primarily driven by new shoppers from the tier-II and tier-III cities. The Reedseer numbers include all the online festive sales combined and not only Amazon or Flipkart.

Snapdeal also claimed that the number of orders received on their platform in 2019 so far are 52 per cent higher than in the sale period in 2018.

Clearly we don’t have the actual numbers right now, but the difference seems very minimal. Flipkart may stand a little high with their wide delivery network in tier-II and tier-III cities, while Amazon has edge in metros with its huge base of paid Prime subscribers.