Flipkart’s BigBillionDays sale kicks off on Sept 20

India’s largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart will host its fourth annual flagship BigBillionDays sale starting on September 20 and is expecting sales during the five days to grow between two and three times compared to last year.

It was Flipkart’s tremendous sales performance during the festive season last year that revived the company and helped it stay ahead of rival Amazon. This time, with a $4-billion war chest, the the firm is looking at deepening its play in the country’s hinterland. “We have always said that BBD is an event for India. The way we have seen customers from tier-II and tier-III towns come online and shop thanks to what the telco operators have done is great. Last year, we saw a double-digit growth in customers coming from tierII and tier-III towns, but this year we are expecting tripledigit growth,” said Smrithi Ravichandran, senior director at Flipkart.

While the company says it will continue to focus on high-spending urban customers with offerings such as EMI on debit cards, nocost-EMI, and even an option to pay for a product only after it has been purchased, a lot of focus has been put on offering deals tailored to customers from smaller towns.

A great example of this focus on small town buyers this year Ravichandran says is offers on mobile phones costing as low as ~2,000 as compared to last year where offers began on devices costing upwards of ~5,000. It’s the same across categories, with the company saying it has put in a lot of effort on curating the right kind of products for buyers outside of metros.