Despite not offering the extremely deep discounts like last year, ecommerce marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal have managed to have a successful week in regards to the festive sales. The technical and delivery difficulties faced last time around forced the ecommerce companies to brainstorm and have contingency plans ready months in advance. Apart from a few minor hitches, It seems to have gone well for the Unicorn etailers. We take a glance at the important facts and figures:
This year Flipkart's Big Billion 'day' sale became big billion 'days', as it was spread over five days. It also took a calculated risk and went app-only which seems to have paid of.
"In preparation for Big Billion Days, we had improved our app and reduced the size from 14MB to 10MB. Overall, the app experience is very fast and smooth. We are very happy that our competitors are continuing to use the desktop. I wish they keep using it. We are happy with the choice we made (of going app only), said Mukesh Bansal, head of the commerce platform at Flipkart.
Snapdeal was the first to kick off its 'Electronic Monday Sale' one day prior to Amazon and Flipkart, which created quite a buzz, although it was reported that Snapdeal exaggerated some of the discounted values on the original MRP. Snapdeal plan to continue its festive sale every Monday until Diwali.
"We expected business to be 10x of our regular demand, but we saw it reach around 17 times a regular sale. We are hoping more and more people shop online...we want to convert ecommerce into a healthy habit."said Anand Chandrasekaran, chief product officer at Snapdeal,
Amazon had a pretty amazing 5 day period also with its 'Great Indian Festive sale'. Day 1 alone proved to be the biggest in the history of Amazon.in which was twice as big as its previous biggest day which was the 'Great Indian Freedom sale', and four times bigger than last Diwali.
“All through the five days, including our biggest day we were able to serve customers without any technical glitches. Customers have enjoyed festive shopping across 100s of categories on PC, App and mobile web,” a press release by the company read.
When Flipkart decided to go app-only this festive season like its fashion label Myntra, there was uproar from some quarters. Amazon and Snapdeal who ran their respective sales on all platforms also excelled on mobile app conversions. The beauty of the app phenomenon is that the most searched for category during the sales was for mobile phones, which means there will surely be more mcommerce converts in the near future.
Flipkart sold a phenomenal 5,00,000 handsets in the first ten hours of opening the category, Snapdeal revealed 500 crore worth of mobiles sold in a single day. Amazon also did swift business, for example on day 3 it sold more handsets in an hour than it usually sells in a day. More surprisingly 20% of these purchases were above the Rs. 20,000 ticket price.
The ecommerce biggies seem to have got off to a good start and there is plenty more to come as they look to exploit the festive dates right up until December. While the ecommerce companies have revealed a lot of data, each one will surely be keeping alot of analytical data secret which will form the strategies for the upcoming months. More information will also be gathered from the delivery team, with even Flipkart's top executives going on the road in search of answers.
As online sellers, did you get bitten by the festive bug and turn buyer for any of the sale days? If Sachin or Binny Bansal were to turn up at your doorstop we would like to to know what insights you would like to give them to improve the system for both buyers and sellers on ecommerce marketplaces?
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
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