Festive Season Mania: Flipkart Sees Record 1.4 Bn Visits During Big Billion Days Sale

Ecommerce behemoth Flipkart has set a new benchmark with 1.4 Bn customer visits during its Big Billion Days festive season sale, which took place between October 8 and 15 this year.

The ecommerce major also claimed to have witnessed strong seller growth during the same period. As per Flipkart, transacting sellers saw a 2.5X increase in their business, compared to the pre-festive period.

“Reflecting an overall uptick in consumer sentiment, the 10th edition of TBBD witnessed a record 1.4 Bn customer visits over early access and seven days of the shopping festival,” Flipkart said in a statement.

According to the company, it saw 4X surge in engagement for new in-app features like Flippi (Chat GPT-based shopping assistant), Vibes (video-led browsing experience,) and SPOYL (GenZ fashion experience), compared to before the festive season sales.

The claims come days after Flipkart said it logged 9.1 Cr user visits during the first 48 hours of the sale. Flipkart also said it had received more than 60% of its total orders from Tier I, II and III cities during the early access and first day of The Big Billion Day sale.

Mobile phones, appliances, lifestyle, beauty, general merchandise, electronics, and home remained top categories on Flipkart during the first 48 hours of the festive sale. 

The ecommerce giant added that it delivered products to remote locations such as Andaman, Hayuliang (Arunachal Pradesh), Choglamsar (Ladakh), Kutch (Gujarat) and Longewala (Rajasthan).

“This year also saw the largest fleet of women wishmasters compared to the previous TBBD editions. Flipkart’s Kirana partners delivered over 4 Mn packages in the first 4 days of TBBD’23,” the statement said.

Previously, Flipkart had to halt its grocery delivery operations after the homegrown ecommerce giant suffered an outage due to high user traffic on October 10.

Further, Flipkart claimed that the artisan community, onboarded under its Samarth programme, observed a 6X growth compared to the pre-festive period.

“In this milestone year, we continue to spread festive cheer by creating 1 Lakh new job opportunities across our supply chain, including fulfilment centres, sortation centres and delivery hubs. We strengthened another pillar of the Indian retail ecosystem by expanding our kirana programme, and this year, over 4 Mn deliveries were made by these partners in the initial days of TBBD,” Flipkart group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said.

Flipkart, which is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its flagship festive season sale, recently launched a membership programme at INR 499 per month to give users early access to sales and other perks.

The development also comes against the backdrop of ecommerce platforms, as per Redseer, being projected to witness a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of INR 90,000 Cr this year, up 18-20% surge year-on-year (YoY).