Festival Fight

The festive season battle among e-commerce companies could get bigger this year as industry analysts expect gross sales of nearly $3.7 billion in a span of just six days (September 29-October 4). Gross sales in 2018 was an estimated $2.3 billion. Amazon's Great Indian Festival and Flipkart's Big Billion Days sale will be the first face-off in the post-deep discounting period after the new rules came into effect in December last year. The rules restricted e-commerce companies from creating monopolies by way of having exclusive partnerships and selling products from firms in which they have stakes.

Last year, there were around 20 million buyers. Interestingly, this year, industry experts believe non-metro consumers could account for 60 per cent of the growth in overall sales. While consumer electronics along with mobile and fashion are expected to be the leading categories, furniture as a segment could also be a significant chunk. - Rukmini Rao