Flipkart vs Amazon festive sales: E-commerce firms claim highest sales ever; most orders from small towns

Competitors Amazon and Flipkart have claimed that they witnessed highest-ever sales in their respective festive sales that concluded on Friday. Both companies reported high demand from Tier II and III cities. Smartphones and fashion were the two categories that drove up sales.

Flipkart's Big Billion Days sale and Amazon's Great Indian Festival sale began at midnight on September 28 for all customers. Both the companies had rolled out the sales for their premium members hours earlier.

"We have more than doubled our transaction units, customers from tier II, III cities, which was the biggest focus for us. We believe we are closing the six days (of sales) with 70-75% of the festive market share. New customer growth is 50-60%," said Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. He added that the sales period was extraordinary, as mentioned in a report in Livemint.

He added that Flipkart clocked 70 billion views in six days. Krishnamurthy also said that the app's Hindi interface brought in new customers.

Amazon also said that smartphones and fashion segments saw a 15-fold and 5-fold increase in sales respectively. Large appliances category grew eight times and that nearly half of the sales came from lower tier cities.

"The first wave of the Great Indian Festival was our biggest celebration ever with Amazon.in witnessing highest share of transacting customers and purchases across all marketplaces in India; orders from 99.4% pin codes; over 65,000 sellers from 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, as mentioned in the daily.

Also read: Buoyant response to Amazon, Flipkart's festive season sales beats slowdown blues