Diwali sales: Flipkart, Amazon announce more discounts for festive season

Bolstered by the successful response to the pre-Diwali sale and discounts earlier this month, e-commerce majors Flipkart and Amazon India have announced three day sales to cash in on the festive mood in the country. While US-based online retail giant Amazon has termed its sale, Great Indian Sale, Bengaluru-headquartered Flipkart has named its discount offer as the Great Diwali Sale. Both offers will be on for three days starting from October 25 midnight to October 28, according to the Economic Times. It also said that other e-commerce firms such as Snapdeal and TataCLIQ are expected to announce their own sales during this period. [caption id=“attachment_2948540” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Logo. Reuters[/caption] The recently concluded  five-day  discount bonanza earlier this month saw sales at Flipkart go up between five to nine times as compared to its regular days in certain categories such as fashion, electronics, smartphones, and large appliances, according to the Business Standard. On account of this high growth in sales, the company has gone in for a course correction this month, the report said. Flipkart is expecting sales to jump four times its monthly average, the BS report said. This time around, the focus will remain as usual on popular categories such as electronics, fashion, etc. However, it will also have short duration sales of half hour, the ET report said,  in a bid to get customers shop online after having received Diwali bonuses. To make it easier for customers to avail of large purchases on EMI, both the e-commerce giants have signed up with banks for schemes and options. While Amazon has tied up with State Bank of India, Flipkart has chosen Citibank and will offer cashback of up to 15 percent when customers use credit and debit cards of these two banks, the ET report said. At the recently concluded five day sales, Flipkart claimed that it had sold 15.5 million units pipping its nearest online rival Amazon which sold 15 million units. The company’s flagship Big Billion Days (BBD) sale event registered gross sales of approximately Rs 3,000 crore during the five-day event, a Mint report said earlier. However, industry sources said that the five day sale netted Flipkart a total gross merchandise value (GMV) of around Rs 2,200 crore - Rs 2,300 crore. The combined sales of all the three e-commerce entities – Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal, was pegged at around Rs 6,500 crore, up 20 percent over the previous year, according a report in Financial Express. According to research firm RedSeer, e-commerce companies are expected to register transactions worth Rs 11,000-13,000 crore (US $1.7-1.9 billion) in October, driven by festive offers and discounts on their platforms. “E-tailers are likely to surpass all sales expectations in the ongoing festive sale days and for the month of October 2016 as a whole,” it had added. During the period of October 1-6 alone, e-tailers are estimated to have clocked gross GMV of Rs 6,500-7,700 crore (US $1-1.2 billion) with sale of 35-40 million units. Going by GMV figures, India’s retail market is around $500 billion while the online share was at $10 billion in 2015 and is expected to be in the reach of $18-20 billion in 2016.