E-commerce firms including Amazon India and Flipkart clocked gross merchandise value (GMV) worth $4.6 billion (or roughly Rs 32,000 crore) in the first week of festive online sales this year, with Flipkart Group accounting for roughly 64% of total GMV (gross merchandise value), according to estimates by RedSeer Consulting.
Amazon India contributed to 28% of the overall GMV clocked by e-commerce platforms during the first week of festive sales.
The overall GMV this year rose by 23% since last year when e-commerce sales for the first week averaged around roughly $3.7 billion. Further, growth marked by e-commerce sales this year comes in spite of offline establishments continuing to be open during the festive season.
The growth for e-commerce sales this year comes on the back of new shoppers coming in the fold of online shopping. The overall online shopper base grew by 20% over last year, with Tier 2 towns and cities contributing to over 61% of the total customers shopping during e-commerce festive sales.
Close to 40 million of the total 62 million shoppers which shopped from online platforms this year were from Tier 2 and beyond cities, RedSeer said.
Both Amazon and Flipkart kickstarted their flagship festive season sales on October 2, including early access for premium members.
In terms of category mix, smartphones continued to be at the top of order driving roughly 46% of overall GMV clocked by e-commerce platforms. However, fashion made a comeback this festive season contributing to 17% of overall sales, as individuals step out of their homes this year, RedSeer’s estimates show.
RedSeer states that during the first week of e-commerce sales, this year, roughly Rs 68 crore worth of mobiles were sold every hour.
“Fashion also saw demand as customers wanted to refresh their wardrobe and the reach expanded as newer affordable platforms reached Tier 2 customers. However, the demand for other categories like home furnishings, home décor and furnishings have been subdued during the festive season this year,” said Redseer in a statement.
“It has been seen that Flipkart Group emerged as the leader during the festive sales with an impressive 64% market share,” added RedSeer.
Social commerce platform, Meesho took on a strong share in the fashion category in spite of horizontal platform Amazon and Flipkart driving 70% of the overall sales.
“Of the remaining market (30%), Meesho has been able to garner a 39% share (of the remaining market) with their affordable offerings targeting a typical Indian household looking for good value products,” said RedSeer.
Meesho ran its five day ‘Maha Indian Shopping League’ festive sale along with Amazon and Flipkart. For the social commerce platform, nearly 60% of the total demand was driven by Tier IV markets, including remote locations like Khawzhwal and Sopore.
“Fuelling our efforts to digitize Bharat, Maha Indian Shopping League served as an entry point for millions of users to shop online with Meesho. Our flagship festive sale event saw over 80% orders coming from tier 2+ markets, a true reflection of our efforts to cut deep into India’s underserved regions,” Vidit Aatrey, founder and chief executive officer, Meesho said.