Customers in tier 2 cities and beyond drove majority of the sales for Amazon and Flipkart over the weekend as both platforms registered record openings for their annual festive season sales.
Amazon kicked off the Great Indian Festival at 12 pm on Saturday for Prime customers, with the sales opening up for all customers at midnight, while Flipkart also started with an early access to its Plus customers at 8 pm on Saturday before opening the sale for all users at midnight.
"Ninety one percent of the new shoppers during the sale came from tier 2 and tier 3 towns," said Amazon India head Amit Agarwal told CNBC-TV18 over the phone.
"One in two customers who shopped for phones and large appliances used affordability options," Agarwal added.
Flipkart said the number of transacting customers from tier 2 and beyond have doubled over the first day of the Big Billion Days sale last year.
"There is no doubt that e-commerce has not only lifted consumer sentiment but has also driven the industry to set new benchmarks. Affordability and value driven themes clearly are the pulsating chords for India and Bharat (rural India)," Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said in a statement.
Both companies have said they did not see any impact of an economic slowdown in the country, and said the sales would be bigger this year with new customers joining online shopping fray.
Forester Research has said that online retailers in India are expected to generate about $4.8 billion in sales during this year’s festive month (September 25 to October 29) , and this would mitigate the impact of the general economic slowdown.
However, the agency said that year-over-year growth in online retail spending during these main sale days will take a hit, from 93 percent in 2018 to 32 percent in 2019.
Here are some statistics from Amazon and Flipkart on day one of the festive sales:
Amazon
Flipkart
First Published: Sept 29, 2019 9:04 PM IST
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