E-commerce platforms like Flipkart and Amazon India make a grand entry into the festive season, gets $2.7 billion in the first four days of festive sales that began on 2 October, including early access for premium members, reveals estimates by management consultancy RedSeer Consulting.
Looking at the initial performance of the platform, the consultancy expects online retail to cross $4.8 billion of the gross merchandise value (GMV) during the first week of the festive sales that ended on Sunday. The data also includes social commerce and grocery platforms, RedSeer said.
Last year, the first four days of the festive week contributed 63% of overall festive week sales, compared with this year’s 57% of projected sales.
“With festive sales lasting longer than last year (9 days compared with 7 days), we are observing the customer demand being more spread out across the period than being concentrated in the first half of the festive week. To that tune, we have observed sales of $2.7 billion across e-commerce platforms and we expect a further $2.1 billion over the remaining five days (end of the festive week),”
Ujjwal Chaudhry, Associate Partner, RedSeer.
RedSeer’s data reveals smartphones as the highest-selling product of this festive season, too, contributing almost 50% of overall e-commerce GMV in the early days of the sale.
The Indian e-commerce major, Flipkart which is drawing its annual Big Billion Days (BBD) sale to a close on Sunday said that the total premium smartphones sold during this year’s sale doubled as compared with last year.
Further, the company added, that the top categories for this year’s sale event were lifestyle, electronics, books, general merchandise, home improvement, and mobiles. As work from home persists and people continue to buy furniture and mattresses, the home improvement category saw a growth of 80%.
Flipkart in this festive sale saw 55% new sellers, with almost 10% of overall sellers on its platform witnessing three-fold growth in sales this year.
Snapdeal, which ran its Toofani Sale from 3 October to 10 October reported a 98% increase in overall sale volumes this year.
The commerce platform said that about 60% of its total orders came from Tier-III cities, and the value of sales from Tier-III cities at the platform also increased 74% as compared to last year.
As for Indian Fashion e-commerce major Myntra, 45% of orders came from tier-II and -III towns, with beauty, personal care, and accessories being high-growth categories on its platform.
Earlier estimates by RedSeer said that e-commerce platforms will clock more than $9 billion GMV during the festive season, a 23% growth from last year.
