NEW DELHI -- India's e-commerce scene is heating up as Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon kick off annual autumn festival sales on Oct. 3, offering steep discounts on products ranging from smartphones, to appliances to apparel. In all, sales are forecast to reach more than $9 billion.
Flipkart, a homegrown e-commerce platform, and Amazon's Indian arm each reportedly have market shares of over 30% in the country's online retail market. The top two players moved the launch of their fall sales forward, and will start on the same day instead of their original plan to start on Oct. 7 and Oct. 4, respectively, highlighting the fight for a larger share of Indian bargain hunters.
Amazon and Flipkart decided to start their sales promotions during Shradh, which began on Sept. 20 and runs through Oct. 6 this year. During Shradh, Hindus remember their departed ancestors. It is traditionally considered an inauspicious time to buy clothes, jewelry or other household items. In years past, the two companies launched their sales during the nine-day Navratri festival, which comes after Shradh.
"They cannot allow [their rival] to start their sale earlier," Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail consultancy Technopak Advisors, told Nikkei Asia. "If the sale starts earlier [for one seller] and customers end up buying goods, they will not buy on the other platform three days later," he said, highlighting the intense competition between Amazon and Flipkart.
Singhal pointed out that young people do not care much about whether the sales take place during Shradh or festivals, and will buy whenever deals are attractive. He added that the economy appears to be in good shape as daily COVID-19 cases drop, offices reopen and people dine out and travel again. "As a result, no company wants to miss out an opportunity for consumers to spend money on merchandise."
Amazon's fall sales event in India will include over 1,000 new product launches from such top brands as Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Sony and Apple. © Reuters India's daily COVID caseload has fallen to less than 30,000 from a peak of over 400,000 a day in early May. The country has so far confirmed over 33.7 million cases, second only to the U.S.
Amazon has revealed some of the deals it plans to offer on smartphones during its "Great Indian Festival" event, including handsets from Samsung, Vivo and OnePlus. Samsung's Galaxy Note 20 -- which was available on its website for 55,400 rupees ($745) on Thursday, a discount of around 30% -- will sell for 44,999 rupees during the sale period. The price of Apple's iPhone11 will also be slashed from 54,900 rupees. The sale price has yet to be announced.
The U.S. e-commerce giant has tied up with the HDFC Bank to offer 10% automatic discounts on purchases made during sale period, further sweetening deals for customers who buy with the bank's credit or debit cards. Amazon has not said how long the sale will run, but it is expected to last a month -- until the festival of Diwali on Nov. 4 -- as was the case last year.
Flipkart has similar tie-ups with Axis and ICICI banks for its "Big Billion Days" sale, which runs through Oct. 10. The online retailer will offer discounts of up to 80% on electronics, home appliances and fashion brands, including Philips, Lenovo, LG, Whirlpool, IFB and Puma. The company is offering impressive deals on lower-end smartphones. For example, the Realme 8i will be priced at 11,999 rupees, less than the 18% discount price of 12,999 it was offering Thursday.
A robot assembles a cardboard box at a Flipkart fulfilment center on the outskirts of Bangalore, in southern India. © Reuters Flipkart said on its website that it will offer its "craziest-ever price" on the iPhone12, whose 64GB model was available on its website for 63,999 rupees ahead of the sale. "Apart from the ongoing discounts, there will be surprise deals and offers every hour," the company said.
Pulkit, an 18-year-old New Delhi college student who bought an iPhone 11 last month, regrets not waiting for the sale. "After I got to know of these upcoming online offers on smartphones, I feel I could have got a better deal if I bought my phone during the festival sales," he said, adding that now he will be looking for deals on cameras and laptops.
Other e-commerce sites also offer deals during the festive season, but none are able to match the buzz created by the Flipkart and Amazon sales events.
This year, online sellers' gross merchandise value (GMV), or the total value of items sold, is expected to rise 30%, year-on-year, to $4.8 billion during the first week of the sale, when most purchases are made. Sales may reach more than $9 billion during the festive month, up 23% from last year's $7.4 billion, according to consultancy RedSeer, which expects mobile phones, electronics and appliances, and fashion to be the top three sales categories.
"The growth will be mostly driven by the accelerated online adoption, which has been witnessed as an effect of COVID," RedSeer said, adding that the festive season will be the icing on the cake for the e-tailing sector in 2021, which has been buoyed by a rapidly growing customer and seller base throughout the year.
India's total online GMV is expected to reach $49 billion to $52 billion in 2021, up from $38.2 billion last year and 27.1 billion in 2019, RedSeer said in a report on festival season sales.
Members of the Confederation of All India Traders gather in New Delhi to protest the visit of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to India in January 2020. © Reuters Apart from the tailwind of digital adoption, the seasonal sales "will be able to capitalize on the emotions of the gifting season in India," said Shahan Sud, an investment professional at Indian Angel Network.
Amazon's sales event will include over 1,000 new product launches from top brands such as Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Sony, Apple, Boat, Lenovo, HP, Asus, Fossil, Levi's, Bosch and others, the company said in a statement. It also announced the creation of more than 110,000 seasonal jobs ahead of the sale, which it said "will help strengthen our fulfillment, delivery and customer service capabilities."
Although in-person shopping has also recovered as COVID's second wave has subsided in India, the Confederation of All India Traders, which represents over 70 million merchants nationwide, remains up in arms. In a Sept. 27 statement, it accused Amazon and Flipkart of adopting a business model that makes consumers "habitual of purchasing cheap goods," in order to drive competitors out of the market and charge higher prices in the future. The heavy concentration of buying during the shopping festival may also increase friction between online and offline retailers.