Amazon says Tier III cities drove its first sale of 2017

The Amazon Great Indian Sale, the first sale event of 2017, concludes today on a new high, setting new benchmarks in daily units sold, number of cashless transactions and adoption of Amazon’s Prime service.
“We are humbled by the massive customer interest in Amazon’s Great Indian Sale, and are excited by the new benchmarks set for daily units, cashless payments using Amazon Pay, and Prime,” said VP and Country Head, Amazon India, Amit Agarwal.
“The significant momentum building upon our already triple digit year over year growth rate, and strong new customer growth with preference for Prime, strengthens our belief that customers across India are choosing us to find, discover, and buy anything online,” he added.
Reach & New Customer Acquisition
Amazon India said that new customer acquisition rate during the sale period matched the peak Diwali shopping season and witnessed over 185 per cent growth as compared to a normal day. The growth was even more stronger in Tier II & III geographies – 200 per cent.
The Indian e-commerce giant has also claimed a remarkable new customer growth in Tier III cities including Patiala – 1084 per cent, Virudhunagar – 630 per cent, Sambalpur – 475 per cent, and Kolhapur – 400 per cent among others.
In a statement, the company has said that the Amazon shopping app “continues to maintain its leadership position as the most downloaded shopping app in the country”. It also said that “surpassing the peak Diwali shopping season, Amazon’s assisted shopping program Project Udaan continued to lead the customer adoption growth with 50X growth as against a normal day”.
Prime Grows in Popularity
Amazon India has said that its Prime service was a customer favorite this sale period with unlimited free expedited shipping, early and exclusive access to deals, and unlimited video streaming, for a low annual promotion fee of 499.
The site has claimed that more customers bought a Prime subscription than any other product and that one out of every two orders were placed by Prime members.
Growth in Cashless Payments
More number of customers chose cashless transactions than ever before. There was significant growth in Amazon Pay balance usage with 30X customers loading money into the Amazon Pay balance as compared to a normal day
New customers who adopted Amazon Pay grew by 360 per cent.
Category Growth Momentum
Customers continued their trust in Amazon by shopping across categories and buying everything from mobile phones, TVs, refrigerators, international brands in fashion to daily essentials, and home products.
All categories grew in the range of 2X-7X as compared to a normal day, the e-commerce behemoth said in the statement.
Seller Growth
It also added that over 2,200 sellers witnessed their biggest sale day ever during the event. Sellers from Tier II and below geographies witnessed growth of over 135 per cent as compared to a normal day.
The number of sellers in the Rs 1 crore club grew over 30 per cent as compared to last year.