70 sellers turn crorepatis in first 3 days of Flipkart's Big Billion Days

More than 300,000 sellers, 60% from tier-2 and beyond, enabled shopping to customers in first three days of Flipkart's 'Big Billion Days' festive sale.

4 min read Last Updated : Oct 19 2020 | 1:29 AM IST

Flipkart said that it witnessed over 70 sellers becoming crorepatis and about 10,000 becoming lakhpati through the early access and first three days of the e-commerce firm’s Big Billion Days (BBD) festive sale.

Over 300,000 sellers out of which about 60 per cent belong to tier-2 and beyond cities enabled shopping to customers in the first three days of BBD. The Walmart-owned firm said the seller base reach has expanded by 20 per cent this year totalling up to 3000 pin codes.

In just about two days of BBD this year, marketplace sellers have witnessed the kind of growth that they saw during the six days of the event last year 2019.

Essential products continue to remain in demand with consumers across the country taking necessary precautions to safeguard themselves and their families against Covid-19. Sellers in categories such as household products and personal care continue to see day-on-day growth.

In the first two days of BBD this year, both Flipkart Wholesale and the Best Price (cash-and-carry) stores had over 35,000 retailers and 18,000 Kiranas operating in various categories. These include fashion, accessories and grocery.

For Flipkart Wholesale tier-2 and tier-3 cities accounted for almost half the sales. The digital B2B marketplace had continued demand for casual and loungewear. It saw a surge in men and women’s ethnic wear, especially from Surat and Jaipur as fashion retailers.

The best-price (cash-and-carry) stores alone had an average adoption of (over) 15 per cent of purchases through e-commerce in which the stores from southern India dominated digital uptake.

With over 95 per cent of products locally sourced, the demand came from cities such as Mysuru, Karimnagar, Kurnool, Meerut, Amravati and Bhopal.

Flipkart had an over 60 per cent increase in digital payment transactions in comparison to non-festive event days during the first 72 hours of BBD. With affordability and value-driving customer purchases this year, the BBD EMI (equated monthly instalment) to buy mobiles, laptops and white goods grew by 65 per cent.

With smartphones becoming essential for most people, the need for upgrading has increased. There has been over a 40 per cent increase in the number of smartphones purchased and a 50 per cent increase in people availing product exchange.

Ahead of the festive season, Flipkart said there were more than 36 million new app downloads by customers across the country. Besides metros, the majority of these downloads happened from smaller cities.

The tier-3 cities made up for almost 60 per cent of the demand, this year. Customers from Jhumri Telaiya (Jharkhand), Chamba (Himachal Pradesh), Cumbum (Andhra Pradesh), Thottiyam (Tamil Nadu) shopped during the BBD. Over 9 million visitors used the vernacular interface to avail the “new essentials” which included mobiles, apparels and electronics.

More than 1,500 new cities shopped for fashion this year. Products such as women’s ethnic wear and men’s sportswear were some of the top fashion choices.

Another e-commerce firm Snapdeal is also half-way into its first Diwali Sale. It said that 65 per cent of the orders placed in its “Kum Mein Dum” sale so far has been received by sellers located beyond the top 5 metropolitan areas of the country.

A large part of the orders will be served by sellers based in well-established commercial hubs in non-metro cities like Jaipur, Surat, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore.

Snapdeal’s ‘Kum Mein Dum’ sale has also seen more orders flow to smaller centres like Avinashi (Tamil Nadu) for textiles, Palitana (Gujarat) for footwear and Rewa (Madhya Pradesh) for gaming accessories. The other such locations include Muktsar (Punjab) for herbal products and Birlapur (West Bengal) for home decor products.

“We believe this represents the second stage of e-commerce growth into Bharat,” said a Snapdeal spokesperson.