Sellers see jump in Flipkart, Amazon orders

WALMART-owned Flipkart and Amazon India on Sunday said thousands of sellers, including a significant chunk from tier II cities and beyond, have received orders during the initial days of festive sale on their platforms.

The festive season sees Amazon India and Flipkart compete head on and roll out a number of offers and schemes to woo customers to shop on their platforms.

Amazon India on Sunday said over 1, 00,000 sellers on its platform received orders during the first 48 hours of its ‘Great Indian Festival’ sale, with a bulk of these sellers being from smaller parts of the country.

Flipkart, on the other hand, said over 3,00,000 sellers received orders during the first three days of its ‘The Big Billion Days’ (TBBD) sale. Of these, about 60 per cent sellers were from tier II cities and beyond.

Amazon’s ‘Great Indian Festival’ started on October 17 and will go on for about a month to coincide with the festive season. Amazon Prime members were provided early access to the sale from October 16.

Flipkart’s annual TBBD sale began on October 16 and will end on October 21. Amazon India Vice President Manish Tiwary said, ‘These 48 hours were the biggest ever for Amazon in its seven-year history. We had created a buildup for the sale for our Amazon sellers...Over 1, 00,000 sellers received orders, and 66 per cent of them (sellers) came from small towns.’

Amazon India, which has over 6, 50, 000 sellers on its platform, registered its biggest spike in new customers, with 91 per cent of them coming from small towns (beyond the metros and top 40 cities), he added.

About 66 per cent of new Prime sign-ups were also from small towns like Tawang and Changlang (Arunachal Pradesh), Mokokchung (Nagaland), Baran (Rajasthan), Pudukkottai (Tamil Nadu), Una (Himachal Pradesh) and Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh), Tiwari said.

In a statement, Flipkart said over 3,00, 000 sellers received orders during the first three days of its sale. ‘The seller base reach has expanded by 20 per cent this year totalling up to 3,000+ pincodes. In just about 2 days of TBBD 2020, marketplace sellers have witnessed growth that they saw during the 6 days of TBBD 2019, showcasing the pent up demand they have seen from consumers across India,’ it added.

This festive period has seen over 70 sellers become crorepatis and about 10,000 became lakhpati through ‘Early Access’ and the three days of TBBD 2020, it added.