The war of the ecommerce giants, which has been raging at the background for the past many months in the form of consolidations and changing strategic models, has come to the fore, thanks to the festive season.
Within the first 12 hours of the festive sale, which started on October 2, Flipkart has claimed victory over Amazon in terms of units sold.
Though Flipkart claimed that it has sold 1.2 million units in less than the first 8 hours, Amazon India may still get the edge as it bets on bigger collection of 80 million products listed on the platform as compared to Flipkart’s catalogue of over 40 million.
Reports say Flipkart and Myntra have together sold 2.25 million units in the first 12 hours of the Big Billion Days, against Amazon India’s 1.5 million units in the first 12 hours of its Great Indian Festival Sale, despite starting a day earlier.
According to data revealed by RedSeer, both Flipkart & Amazon India has now seen a combined sale of around a mammoth 3.73 million units in the first 12 hours as compared to 3.1 million shipments on special sale days same time last year,.
The upper edge couldn’t be gauged properly as none of the players disclosed their gross merchandise value (GMV).
Manish Tiwary, Vice President of Category Management, Amazon India, told media, “We have never experienced 100,000 units sold in half an hour. In terms of units sold apparel and grocery have the largest share, because they have the lower ASP (average selling price). In terms of gross merchandise, it will be smartphones and TVs.”
Amazon India also revealed that there has been 5 times increase in new customer acquisitions, with around 70% of the sales coming from smaller towns. The FMCG category has seen a 10x growth, while smart phones and consumer electronics witnessed a 7 times growth, with large appliances washing machine, air conditioners and TV sales saw a spike of 19-20x over usual business.
Amazon Fashion saw a growth 6-7x growth over non-sale days, while Myntra revealed it ash clocked over 3 times more revenue in the first hour compared to 2015 edition of Big Billion Days (BBDs). A Flipkart spokesperson reported that Myntra sold over 250,000 units in first 12 hours of sale.
