Festive sale battle wages on: Amazon India, Flipkart claim top spot

Online marketplace giant Amazon India on Wednesday claimed to have sold twice as much as its biggest competition Flipkart during the first three days of the Great Indian Sale — its the biggest sale since Diwali — held during January 21-24.

Claiming the top spot, the firm said it has continued to maintain supremacy in the Indian e-commerce ecosystem for the past 20 months. The firm also said it has become the top marketplace in terms of smartphones, an area where Flipkart had earlier claimed to be the top player. 

“We acquired the highest number of new customers ever in one single event, outside of the Diwali sales, with 85 per cent of them coming in from tier II and tier-III towns,” Manish Tiwary, vice-president (category management), Amazon India, said.

Smrithi Ravichandran, senior director at Flipkart, however, countered Amazon’s claims, saying Flipkart continued to maintain the lead as the largest e-commerce player in the country on the back of the stellar Republic Day Sale, held during January 21-23. “During the three-days, our share of the e-tail market would be between 60 per cent and 65 per cent," she said. 

Amazon is locked in an intense battle with SoftBank-backed Flipkart and both have pumped in billions of dollars in expanding infrastructure and delivery capabilities.

Tiwary quoted data from Kantar IMRB and said Amazon.in had the highest share of orders with 2X more orders than nearest competition. He also said that Amazon.in had nearly double the number of transacting customers over the nearest competitor.

Amazon.in saw a strong uptake across categories, including smartphones, large appliances, and apparel. “Smartphones was the most popular category with a sharp increase of 6X over a normal day. Large appliances also grew over 4.5X,” Tiwary said. 

The company said it witnessed growth in grocery sales, too. Showing that the online marketplace is a one-stop-shop for grocery, the company said that Amazon Pantry customers bought 2.5X of Pantry Boxes than a regular day in 2017. Detergents led the way for household essentials, with 4X sales on Day 1.

The company said it was concentrating more on adding customers to the platform. It has been adding new customers as well as increasing the number of Prime members for the past few quarters. With its mix of fashion, grocery, and in-app entertainment for Prime, the firm has been able to gain as many as 100 million paid members in India, according to industry insiders.

According to Amazon, in its most recent sale, Prime membership purchases stood at 4.5 times over a normal day. Amazon.in said it added Prime members from over 300 cities, including Srinagar in the north, Erode in the south, Bhuj in the west, and Hooghly in the east.

GREAT INDIAN SALE RUNDOWN

• 1.7X new customers over a normal business day with 85% coming from tier-II, -III
• Prime attracted new members from over 300 cities including Srinagar, Erode, Bhuj
• Over 3X customers used Amazon Pay balance
• Around 1,000 sellers saw their biggest one-day sale ever during the sale during the Great Indian Sale
• Close to 350 sellers crossed the millionaire mark in just 2 days