Billion-dollar online sale ends, war of words begins

A day after Amazon's claim on leadership, Flipkart hits back

A day after Amazon said it had outperformed its peers in annual pre-Diwal sale, arch rival Flipkart has come out with all guns blazing and said that it's way ahead of Amazon and Snapdeal in the five-day sale that ended on Thursday.

Flipkart, along with online fashion subsidiaries Myntra and Jabong, said it sold 15.5 million units in the five-day period. Amazon, which launched and concluded its sale a day earlier, said it had shipped 15 million units to customers, while smaller rival Snapdeal said it had sold over 11 million products.

"We've seen around 70 per cent overall growth in sales from last year during this sale and a lot more growth in lifestyle and large appliances. More than 100 per cent in those categories," said Binny Bansal, co-founder and CEO of Flipkart, in a telephonic interview.

While Amazon's product tally seems awfully close to leader Flipkart's, around 1.6 million units sold by the US-headquartered retailer were its own Rs 499 Prime subscriptions, said analysts.

Neither of the firms shared the absolute gross merchandise value (GMV) of the business they did during the sale, but some industry watchers said Flipkart might have raced past Amazon.

According to sources, Snapdeal had total GMV of Rs 600 crore, but Flipkart said it did Rs 1,400 crore in sales on October 3 alone. Collectively, top three e-commerce firms are estimated to have sold goods valued between $1.1 and $1.2 billion, according to researcher Redseer Consulting.

"Hundreds of thousands of orders were delivered in 24 hours despite the massive surge in orders. We saw four times increase of new users who shopped at Snapdeal as compared to last Diwali," said Kunal Bhal, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal.

Flipkart said that over 95 per cent of all products sold on its platform during the sale were priced higher than Rs 300. Moreover, over 100,000 consumers shopped for products exceeding Rs 50,000, while not revealing the final GMV tally of goods sold on its platform.

Amazon said it saw sales grow three times during its five-day sale, when compared with last year. Moreover, the company claimed its overall growth for the year was in tune of 150 per cent year-on-year.

"I don't have any benchmark with other players in terms of sales but with 150 per cent growth all through the year and a three-time jump in Diwali sales, I would not be surprised if we are the leader," said Amit Agarwal, country manager, Amazon India.

While the first half of the year saw India's e-commerce market shrinking, given the lack of discount offers by players, the success of Diwali sales will boost the sector beyond last year's benchmark. Analysts said the overall GMV for e-commerce in India for the month of October could be between $1.7 and $1.9 billion, making for an annual run rate of $20-23 billion.

"Customers, both regular shoppers and first-timers, have come online to shop in millions. As a result of this bumper sales performance, we see the industry being on track to deliver the single biggest month for Indian e-tailing sector ever, in October 2016," said Anil Kumar, CEO at RedSeer Consulting.