With Amazon and Flipkart concluding their massive festive sales, both e-tailers said that a major part of online shoppers this festive season were from tier 2 towns and beyond. Overall, market research firm RedSeer estimates e-commerce players to clock sales of around $3.2 billion during this festive season.
Amazon said it received orders from 99.4% of pin codes in India during the Great Indian Festival sale and saw over 88% new customers from small towns. Flipkart too, saw a massive number of orders coming from tier 2 cities across categories.
In the fashion category, Flipkart saw 55% of overall orders coming from tier 2 cities.
Flipkart’s large appliances category too, saw close to 50% sales from tier 2 and 3 cities such as Nellore, Muzaffarpur, Salem, Dehradun, Mysuru, among others. Amazon, on the other hand claims that nearly half of the sales for large appliances came from lower tier towns powered by brands like Godrej, LG, Samsung and Whirlpool.
“The first wave of the Great Indian Festival was our biggest celebration ever with Amazon.in. Orders from 99.4% pin codes, over 65,000 sellers from more than 500 cities receiving orders in just five days and customers from over 15,000 pin codes joining Prime," said Amit Agarwal, Senior Vice President and Country Head, Amazon India.
One in every 10 Flipkart’s orders came from new delivery PIN codes -- including a delivery to a village called Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, 100 kms from Myanmar China border, in just 3 days.
Nearly 55% of customers for Flipkart’s private brands portfolio came from Tier 2 & below towns, with top non-metro markets including Lucknow, Ernakulam, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram and Vizag.
In the electronics category, Flipkart claims to have witnessed a growth of over 130% in customers from tier 2 cities and beyond as compared to last year’s Big Billion Days sale. And within these customers, the number of women shoppers has increased by over 100%, Flipkart claims.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group said, “TBBD 2019 has proven that Bharat has moved closer to India in more ways than one. Whether it is the uptake of the Hindi interface or the adoption of our affordability constructs, engagement constructs like gaming, consumers have engaged with brands they love like never before. We take immense pride in making e-commerce more inclusive through the introduction of some top categories which during this festive season, have been able to cater to the needs of Tier 2 markets and beyond.”
Flipkart’s 2GUD, its unbranded lifestyle, fashion and refurbished goods platform had more than 50% of customers from tier 3 and below and 80% orders from non-metro cities.
In terms of sellers too, Flipkart claims that over 40% of transacting sellers during TBBD sale were from Tier 2 and beyond towns.