With 68% GMV In First Week Of Festive Sale, Flipkart Knocks Out Amazon

Walmart-owned Flipkart seems to have beaten Amazon fair and square in the first week of the festive sale between October 16-21. A report by market tracker RedSeer Consulting claimed that Flipkart is estimated to have posted a little over double the sales of closest rival Amazon.

According to estimates by the market tracker, the combined sales on Flipkart Group and Amazon accounted for more than 90% of the ecommerce industry’s gross sales of around INR 29,000 Cr in the first week. As per RedSeer Consulting’s estimates, this is a 55% year-on-year growth in sales.

The study has also revealed that Flipkart captured 68% of the gross merchandise value (GMV) of the two ecommerce companies during the week-long period.

Flipkart had earlier claimed that its ‘The Big Billion Days’ festive season sale saw 1.5x number of transacting sellers compared to last year, of which nearly 35% witnessed 3x sales. The company has delivered 10 Mn shipments with over 3.5 Mn of them delivered by its kirana partners.

Flipkart and its subsidiary Myntra which took a break from October 21 and October 22 respectively after their initial sales, will be resuming their Diwali sales from October 29 onwards for a week.

After the end of the first phase of its sale, Myntra had claimed that it registered a 100% growth in orders received. According to the company, 45 Mn customers visited the company’s portal out of which 4 Mn shopped 13 Mn items during the ‘Big Fashion Festival’ sale that concluded on October 22.

An earlier report by RedSeer Consulting had estimated the sales by both Amazon and Flipkart in the first four days of the festive sale this year (October 15-19) at $3.5 Bn (INR 26K Cr), surpassing last year’s $3 Bn. 

Speaking to ET, an Amazon India spokesperson said, “We cannot comment on speculative reports without transparent methodology.” 

“The awareness of people regarding the sales and the motivation to shop online were perhaps the highest ever, and we think potentially Flipkart was more able to penetrate the Tier-2 markets. I won’t say Amazon lost out, but I would say Flipkart was able to better gain from their historical strength given how online demographics has been moving this year,” RedSeer director Mrigank Gutgutia said speaking to the publication.  

Key Takeaways

• Industry wide sales grew 55%
• Number of online shoppers during the period increased 85% to 52 Mn
• The average order value dropped to INR 5,500 from INR 6,800

From Smartphones To Fashion

While smartphones continued to dominate, accounting for 47% of all sales during the one-week festive sale period, other electronics and appliances generated 27% of the sales, up from 25% a year earlier, according to the report. The contribution of fashion to the overall industry’s GMV dropped to 14% this year from 17% last year.

However, the uptake on shopping for fashion is likely to see an uptake as Diwali approaches, says Gutgutia. “We need to see how many of the new or dormant shoppers come back and shop for products from more categories,” he said.