Ecommerce rivals Amazon and Flipkart have geared up for their respective festive season sales. For the first time since the inception of ecommerce in India, both the companies will begin their sale offers on the same day.
Both platforms will be offering attractive deals and huge discounts across various categories to drive up sales for five consecutive days. According to sources, homegrown market leader Flipkart has tasked its executives to register a lead of 70%-30% over Amazon India. Meanwhile, the American online retailer Amazon has promised to fight with the force of ‘two Amazons’ against Flipkart in an epic battle. While the stage has been set by the two giants, this year will see the debut of another ecommerce entrant, Alibaba backed Paytm Mall, along with market veterans Snapdeal and Shopclues.
In preparation for the sale, Flipkart India Pvt., Ltd., received a working capital credit of Rs. 1,000 crore from Axis Bank in addition to the existing credit line of Rs. 375 crores that the company already had with the bank. Amazon India has also been catching up with Flipkart in metrics like traffic, volumes and seller base. The global firm has launched 50 brands since January and hosts over two million products under its fashion category. The focus this year will be on the high spending Prime customers while acquiring new customers through their consumables category. Multiple industry experts agree the total sale generated by Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival will be at least 50% more than last year, even touching the Rs. 15,000 crores mark.
New entrant Paytm Mall backed by China’s Alibaba has also chalked out an aggressive budget of Rs. 1,000 crores for the sale season including Rs. 501 crores cashback offers. For their four day sale, Paytm Mall will be spending close to $ 35 million on its logistics network claiming that over 50% of the orders will be delivered the same day or by the next day. Meanwhile, smaller ecommerce firms such as Snapdeal and Shopclues are hoping to reaffirm their position in the market this season. Snapdeal, after the failed attempt to merge with Flipkart, plans to conduct 3 or 4 festive sales to regain the big chunk of market share they lost during the 2016 festive season sale. ShopClues, on the other hand, will focus on unstructured categories including unbranded fashion goods to defend its position in smaller towns. The ecommerce firm plans to double sales to over 10 million units during the festive period as it targets an Initial Public Offering (IPO) next year.
According to a study by management consulting agency RedSeer, during the 2016 sale, India’s ecommerce companies generated a gross revenue of $ 2.2 billion. The battle for highest gross revenue generated through festive season sale begins on September 20.
