Amazon eyes up to fivefold jump in festive season sales
NEWDELHI: Online retailer Amazon India, which plans to host its flagship Diwali season sale, the Great Indian Festival, from October 10-15, expects gross sales across all its businesses (excluding grocery) to jump two to five times compared to last year, said a top company executive.
In 2017, Amazon posted about ₹2,700 crore in gross merchandise value during the four-day sale, Mint had reported. This Diwali, Amazon looks to have an edge over arch-rival Flipkart, which has been the dominant player during festive sales for the past two years.
“Most of our businesses will grow two to five times overall as compared to last Diwali keeping grocery aside which is growing many folds,” said Manish Tiwary, vice-president of category management at Amazon. “We are expecting a bumper Diwali in every sense. We believe we have a very complete portfolio of best-sellers making it bigger and better,” he said. Mint had earlier reported that Flipkart was targeting sales of $1.5-1.7 billion in its annual Big Billion Days sale, nearly double of what it did last year.
Together, Flipkart and Amazon are expected to record sales of $2.5-3 billion during the five-day events this year, according to Redseer estimates.
Amazon is also expecting a significant jump in the number of customers from tier 2 and 3 cities, following the launch of its Hindi website. Last year, more than 70% of its customers came from small towns. “With Hindi in play this time, the number of people shopping online will be much more. Going by the logic of the Hindi heartland, intuitively it will be more comfortable for people to shop,” said Tiwary.
Large appliances, smartphones, Amazon’s Kindle and Echo devices, fashion and wireless devices will drive sales, according to Tiwary.