Flipkart, Amazon log record early sales as festive week begins

Leading ecommerce players Amazon and Flipkart on Sunday said early trends during their respective festive sales kicked off from October 3 reflected upbeat consumer sentiment and the growth for micro small and medium enterprises MSMEsand sellers The ecommerce players are expected to clock sales worth USD 48 billion Rs 33600 crore in the festive weekFlipkart said it saw a 40 per cent growth in early access for Flipkart Plus customers as compared to last year as the commerce platform kicked off 8th edition of The Big Billion Days TBBD festive salesMore than 2 million customers prebooked close to 5 million products just prior to early access by paying just Re 1Nearly 45 per cent of customer demand has been from tier 3 cities and beyond signalling a strong preference for highvalue goodsitems Flipkart said in a statementThis year TBBD has started off seeing upbeat participation by customers and sellers We will expand and strengthen our ecosystem of sellers and MSMEs enabling better income and livelihoods for millions and expand our reach across the country said Nandita Sinha Vice President Customer and Growth FlipkartOne in five customers has chosen to exchange their smartphone for a new one with 8260 per cent of customers choosing to pay for their next smartphone using prepaid payment optionsApple 12 and Apple 12 Mini are currently the favourite smartphone models accounting for most of the 2 lakh Apple iPhone 12 devices sold so farThe pentup demand for large appliances and electronics is evident from the fact that TVs are the largestselling category in home appliances with laptops recording top numbers in electronics the company saidFlipkart said it has onboarded over one lakh kiranas to date for its lastmile delivery programmeOn the other hand Manish Tiwary Vice President Amazon India said that the Great Indian Festival 2021 received a strong start with millions of customers buying from small sellers listed on Amazonin including local shops startups and brands artisans weavers and SMBsDuring Prime Early Access on Oct 2 the number of local shops participating in the event more than doubled compared to last year We also saw a 60 per cent increase in sellers who received their highest ever single day sales yearonyear on amazonin Tiwary said in a statementThe number of sellers receiving an order from Tier 2 and 3 cities jumped by 21 per cent and 16 per cent more sellers received orders over last yearPrime subscription continues to be a customer favourite across India with two out of three new Prime signups coming from Tier 23 cities and customers shopping in 8 Indian languages Tiwary saidIndians are expected to buy goods worth a whopping USD 9 billion Rs 64000 crore across online platforms in the festive season OctoberDecember this year according to latest data from Bengalurubased market research firm RedSeerThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliabilitsy and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever