E-commerce majors earn 'big' via pre-diwali sales, small towns became the biggest driver

Last week the Internet was buzzing with mammoth discounts and offers by almost all the major e-commerce players. The firms had invested heavily in upgrading technology, logistics and promotions to earn big through lucrative discounts and offers. With the conclusion of these sales on October 17, India’s biggest e-tailers appear to have succeeded in selling huge amount of products, and drawing many million customers’ to their platforms.
According to an official statement by Amazon India, which organized a 5 days long ‘The Great Indian Festive Sale’, ” the first day of its sale last week was the biggest day ever for Amazon.in in terms of revenue.”
“It was two times bigger than our previous big day which was The Great Indian Freedom Sale (held in August this year ahead of Independence Day) and four times bigger than last Diwali,” stated Amzon.
The company further revealed that over 65% of its orders came from tier-2 & -3 cities. The fashion category grew by almost 5 times as compared to last year’s Diwali. Traffic from mobile was over 70% and lakhs of new customers came from cities like Aurangabad, Malappuram, Dhanbad, Kannur, Tiruchirappalli, Jamshedpur and others.
Flipkart, which hosted its ‘Big Billion days’, said it sold products worth Rs 2,000 crore on its platform during these five-day (Oct 13- 17). Last year, when it first conducted a sale on this scale, it sold Rs 600 crore worth of products in a single day.
The company’s sale this year saw eight million units being sold. Around half of these came from tier-2 and smaller towns. Apparel and mobile phones accounted for 65% of the sales, followed by electronics and home appliances, and home furnishings.
Snapdeal, which started its sale on Monday last week, said that by Thursday, it had shipped five million products. The company said that it had sold Rs 500 crore worth of mobile phones, and saw 3.5 times growth in new users.
Tier 2 and 3 cities are repeatedly coming out as the biggest consumption driver for these online sales; notably due to the lack of organised brick and mortar retailers in these smaller cities and rise of mobile penetration in India.
In August, during the Independence Day sales as well, the sales from smaller towns showed promising results. “Total number of new customers to the site grew by 33%, of which 65% new customers came from the App and 70% of new customers came from Tier II and Tier III cities and towns,” Amazon India’s spokesperson said during its two days long (August 10th and 12) Independence day sales.