Flipkart clocks over 200 mn fashion products in Spring-Summer of 2022

Season saw a resurgence in consumption on renewed economic recovery post-pandemic

E-commerce giant Flipkart said it recorded a sale of over 200 million fashion products across close to 19,200 pin codes. The Spring Summer Season also played a key role for customers and sellers and saw close to 175,000 fashion sellers participating. These sellers came from not just metros but from tier 2 and tier 3 towns as well. Customers shopped for fashion and lifestyle products including sarees, men’s t-shirts, watches, sunglasses, women’s kurtis and footwear, from national, international and homegrown fashion brands.

According to the sources, this is the first time Flipkart has hit 200 million orders in the fashion category, from January to May this year, considered as the spring-summer season, surpassing the pre-pandemic sales in 2019 as the fashion segment grew rapidly for the company amid covid.

Flipkart declined to reveal the exact number of fashion products it sold during the same period in 2020 and 2021, but according to the people familiar with the development, it was considerably less due to the impact of covid-induced lockdowns.

“This year’s spring-summer season saw a resurgence in consumption on the back of renewed economic recovery post-pandemic and we are pleased that lakhs of sellers saw a phenomenal response during this season,” said Sandeep Karwa, vice president, Flipkart Fashion. “It is also a testament to our efforts to bring unparalleled value in fashion shopping to our customers. With a range of technology-led innovations that are making shopping experiences personalised and seamless for our customers, we are bringing India and Bharat closer ushering in considerable growth opportunities for lakhs of sellers and brand partners.”

The season saw customers shopping for fashion products from across the country including metros and a majority of these customers also from tier 3, 4 and 5 cities shop for fashion products from cities like Ranchi, Ernakulam, Kanpur, Medinipur and Cuttack, and a substantial number of the overall customer base were first-time fashion shoppers.

Ayush Baid, a Flipkart Fashion seller who sells Women's ethnic wear from Surat, Gujarat, said, his business has grown on Flipkart by 500 per cent during the spring-summer season. “This was possible due the technology and power of e-commerce. Growth on Flipkart has led to the overall growth of the company,” said Baid.

Harish Dadwani, a Flipkart Fashion seller partner from Agra, Uttar Pradesh, said it has been 4 years since he joined e-commerce and through the Flipkart platform and has seen a growth of over 10X since then.  “I had launched several new products in the spring-summer collection which has seen a 50X growth spike,” said Dadwani. “I am very positive to set new milestones and garner new opportunities in the coming years and feel that I can achieve much more through e-commerce, technology and Flipkart.”

The spring-summer season saw boosted traction from cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Gorakhpur, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi and New Delhi. Furthering its endeavour of strengthening ecosystem partnerships and supporting regional brands and sellers, Flipkart Fashion saw participation from hundreds of made in India brands this season, which included sarees, men’s T-shirts, watches, sunglasses, women’s kurtis, footwear and jeans. The season saw tremendous growth for its fashion seller partners and boosted consumption from audiences across the country.

Walmart-owned Flipkart is in a fierce battle with rivals such as Amazon, Reliance’s JioMart and Tata to tap the booming e-commerce market in India. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, and more consumers are shopping online at a higher frequency on the e-commerce platforms. The online retail market in India is expected to reach $350 billion by 2030 from $45-50 billion now.

Last year in November, e-commerce firms such as Flipkart, Amazon, and others witnessed blockbuster festive season sales of about $9.2 billion year surpassing the pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion witnessed during the festive month in 2019.

A query to Amazon related to the demand it is witnessing in the fashion category and the number of fashion products it sold during the spring-summer season, remained unanswered till the time of going to press.

Infographics:

Customers from across the country shopped for fashion products

These include metro cities, and emerging towns including tier 3, 4 and 5 cities that saw increased participation.

A substantial number of overall customer base shopped for fashion products for the first time

Sarees, men’s T-shirts, watches, sunglasses, women’s kurtis, footwear and jeans topped the demand chart