Walmart-owned Flipkart, India’s biggest e-commerce marketplace, wound up its annual Big Billion Days shopping festival on October 4, 2019. This year’s edition, which ran for six days, recorded the highest sales yet, according to Flipkart, although the company has not divulged total sales numbers. Focus on Non-Tier-One Cities and Towns Instrumental in Record Sales Growth BBD 2019, in what is the shopping festival’s sixth edition, registered its highest sales yet, according to the company. Flipkart’s concerted efforts toward making a larger thrust into non-tier-one cities and towns proved to be instrumental to this success. Improving last-mile delivery capabilities, offering affordable financing options and the introduction of a Hindi-language interface were key among initiatives to that end. Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group, said:

We have more than doubled our transaction units—customers from tier-two/ three cities—which was the biggest focus for us. We believe we are closing the six days [of sales] with 70–75% of the festive market share. New customer growth is 50–60%.

Whether it is the uptake of the Hindi interface or the adoption of our affordability constructs [and] engagement constructs like gaming, consumers have engaged with brands they love like never before.

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Key Highlights of BBD 2019 Following are some of the key statistics from BBD 2019 as announced by Flipkart:

• 70 billion views over the six-day sale period.
• New customers grew by 50%.
• Over 50% of Flipkart Plus shoppers were based in non-tier-one cities and towns.
• More than 50% growth in the number of participating sellers compared to BBD 2018.
• Sales generated from tier-three cities and towns grew by 100% year over year.
• Almost half of the top sellers on Flipkart registered three times the sales they saw last year.
• More than 40% of sellers during the sale were based in non-tier-one cities and towns.
• Close to 50% growth in the number of new seller cities.
• Number of transactions via financing options like equated monthly installments, Flipkart Pay Later and Cardless Credit grew by 70% compared to BBD 2018.
• Artists and weavers who participated in the festival through the “Flipkart Samarth” initiative experienced more than 100% sales growth during the six-day event. (Flipkart Samarth seeks to offer national market access to local artisan and handicraft communities.)

Fashion recorded 70% sales growth compared to BBD . According to Flipkart, 15 clothing items, and five accessories were sold per second across the sale period. Within the company’s fashion portfolio, 20 brands managed to sell more than 100,000 units each during the sale. Moreover, the company said the Flipkart fashion originals portfolio grew 100% compared to Big Billion Days 2018. The mobile category experienced the best festive season sales ever, with mobile brands recording “2X growth” compared to BBD 2018. According to Flipkart, “. At the start of early access, there was a in users, which reflects an eager anticipation for mobiles. There was a 2.5X increase in adoption of product exchange in mobile phone purchases.” The electronics category grew its overall new customer count by 50%, and during the early-access period, 34 electronic accessories were sold every second. stated that “Apple Watches earned over one month[’s worth] of their India business in the of the Big Billion Days sale.” In the large appliances category, Flipkart claimed to have sold one in two television sets, one in three washing machines, one in five refrigerators and one in five air conditioners that were sold overall in India during the sale period. In the furniture category, with a near doubling of sales year over year, Flipkart claimed that it has become the largest furniture marketplace in India and that one furniture product was sold every two seconds during the sale. The books, general merchandise and home category was among the fastest-growing categories during this year’s event, with an almost doubling of sales and a 140% increase in units sold compared to BBD 2018. Private brands’ sales were 2.5 times those of BBD 2018. Around 55% of customers who bought private-branded products came from non-tier-one towns, and more than 12% of private-brand shoppers were new users. [caption id="attachment_97776" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Flipkart[/caption]   Amazon’s Great Indian Festival Also Posts Highest-Ever Sales Amazon’s Great Indian Festival (GIF) 2019, which ran in parallel with BBD 2019, also brought down the curtains on its six-day festive season sale on October 4. The company stated that this was its biggest festive season sales in India ever, and a significant portion of new customer growth came from non-tier-one cities and towns. According to the company, it received orders from 99.4% of pin codes (postal codes), while more than 65,000 sellers received orders from over 500 cities across the duration of the sale period. Amazon stated that “availability of selection, convenience and affordability” was a significant factor that enabled it to record its highest-ever sales. [caption id="attachment_97777" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Amazon[/caption]   GIF 2019: Key Highlights

• Smartphones: Grew 15-fold, with brands like Samsung, OnePlus, Apple, Xiaomi and Vivo leading the way.
• Fashion: Grew five-fold, with shoes registering a “6X growth” while apparel registered “4X growth.”
• Large appliances: Grew “8X,” with almost 50% of sales generated from non-tier-one cities and towns.
• Echo devices: Grew 70-fold in the “best-ever” sale for Amazon devices in India.
• New customer growth: Around 88% of new customers were from small towns.

Amit Agarwal, Senior Vice President and Country Head of Amazon India, said:

The first wave of the Great Indian Festival was our biggest celebration ever, with Amazon.in witnessing the highest share of transacting customers and purchases across all marketplaces in India; orders from 99.4% pin codes (postal codes); over 65,000 sellers from 500+ cities receiving orders in just five days; and customers from over 15,000 pin codes joining Prime.

Key Insights Both Flipkart and Amazon announced record-high sales in their respective festive season sales in 2019, driven by significant growth in non-tier-one cities and towns. In the absence of comparable data, it is not clear as to which retailer generated the lion’s share of sales. However, the success of the strategy to focus on smaller towns and cities to drive sales growth implies that the battleground has shifted. Festive season sales in India’s e-commerce landscape will continue to grow year on year, as mobile and internet penetration deepens and online shopping becomes more popular. The battle for supremacy between the country’s two major e-commerce companies is therefore set to intensify.