Amazon Great Indian Festival sale is in its ‘finale’ phase and ends on November 13, after going on for almost a month. This year’s Amazon Great Indian Festival sale was one of the most successful annual sale from the e-commerce giant, with over 1.1 lakh sellers receiving orders in the first 48 hours of the sale. The Amazon Great Indian Festival sale this year got an extra boost due to people’s preference of opting for online shopping due to the COVID-19 pandemic for this year’s Diwali season. The Amazon Great Indian Festival sale came in competition with Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale and Big Diwali sale.
Amazon India Vice President Manish Tiwary talked to us about the e-commerce giant’s annual sale this year. During our conversation, Tiwary said that the first 48 hours of the Great Indian Festival sale were the biggest opening 48 hours ever. During the first 48 hours, the top sold categories were Smartphones, Large Appliances and Consumer Electronics with leading brands OnePlus, Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi making record sales. Smartphones, Fashion and Consumables attracted the most number of new customers from across the country. Other top-selling products included laptops, headphones, tablets, cameras and smartwatches, TVs, consumables, fashion etc.
1. How is the Amazon Great Indian Festival different this year in comparison to last year?
This year, Amazon Great Indian Festival is an opportunity for sellers and partners to reach millions of customers across the country. Our sellers are excited and expect this to help them in accelerating their business. This year, the Great Indian Festival was the biggest ever opening for our sellers and brand partners, more shoppers and sellers participated in the opening 48 hours of the Great Indian Festival than ever. In the SMB pre-festive lead up and first 48 hours of the Great Indian Festival over 5,000 sellers have clocked sales worth Rs 10 lakh, over 1.1 lakh sellers received orders and 66 percent of sellers who received an order were from tier II & III cities such as Yadgir in Karnataka, Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu and Lakhisarai in Bihar.
2. What new strategies is Amazon India adopting to cope with the changing behavior of the online Indian shopper?
One thing we’ve learnt from the COVID-19 crisis is how important a role Amazon and ecommerce can play with enabling policies – for our customers as much as for small businesses & economy. We take this responsibility seriously, and we’re proud of the work our teams are doing to help customers through this difficult time.
At this moment in time, our focus is to ensure our customers get all that they need safely and that we are able to strongly help our small business partners with their business revival to manage through these challenging times. Customers recognize that ecommerce is the safest way for them to get what they need, and sellers know that e-commerce is the best way for them to serve their customers as their footfalls have been impacted.
We are seeing a 50 percent increase in new seller registrations vs pre COVID19. The sellers on Amazon.in have been receiving orders for consumer electronics, study from home essentials, kitchen & home appliances, smart devices, laptops, mobile phones, phone accessories, personal grooming products, apparel and more besides groceries and other essential products.
3. Which categories saw the maximum traction this time around? Did Amazon notice any unique or different shopping trends, with regards to categories or products?
During the first 48 hours, the top sold categories were Smartphones, Large Appliances and Consumer Electronics with leading brands OnePlus, Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi making record sales. Smartphones, Fashion and Consumables attracted the most number of new customers from across the country. New products received a rousing response; popular new products were OnePlus 8T, Samsung M31 Prime Edition, OnePlus Nord (Gray Ash), Xbox Series S, Maggi 2 minute Desi Cheesy Masala, Samsung 6.5 kg fully automatic washing machine, new collection from BIBA & Max among over 1,100 new launches.
Other top-selling products included laptops, headphones, tablets, cameras and smartwatches, TVs, consumables, fashion etc. Smartphones remained popular among customers with iPhone 11, Redmi Note Series, Redmi 9A, OnePlus 8T, OnePlus Nord and Samsung M31 Prime Edition being among the popular smartphones on Amazon.in. Interestingly, total iPhones sold on Amazon.in in one day were more than the total iPhones sold in the entire festive sale period of last year.
Mi 43” TVs, along with TVs with Alexa such as OnePlus 43”, OnePlus 32” and Samsung 32” also remained popular choices this season. Work from home essentials like study tables, chairs and dishwashers continued to remain popular among customers.
4. What is Amazon India doing to ensure safe deliveries for customers?
We place tremendous value and focus on the well-being and safety of our employees and contractors around the world as we face the challenges associated with COVID-19. We are working closely with authorities to ensure we are taking the right precautions and have implemented a series of preventative health measures for employees, associates and partners at our sites such as adherence to social distancing norms, use of face covering, and daily temperature screenings in our operations sites among other measures.
We are geared up to manage this increased demand while we ensure the safety of our associates and customers. In order to ensure safe and reliable deliveries, and serve customer demand during Great Indian Festival, Amazon has ramped up its delivery infrastructure adding close to 200 delivery stations and added tens of thousands of delivery partners to its network. Amazon.in expanded its fulfilment footprint with more than 60 fulfilment centres in 15 states offering a storage capacity of over 32 million cubic feet to serve customers in the farthest parts of the country. Further, Amazon India announced 5 new sort centres and expansion of 8 existing sort centres across the country to strengthen fulfilment capacity.
In addition to this, we have created more than 100,000 seasonal job opportunities ahead of the festive season across our operations network in the country. The new seasonal positions will help elevate our delivery experience and boost the company’s fulfilment and delivery capabilities to meet the surge in customer demand this festive season.
5. When will your festive sale be on till?
To conclude the month-long festive season celebration, we have announced ‘Finale Days’ of the Amazon Great Indian Festival till 13th November 2020. Customers can avail special deals & offers from sellers on the widest selection of smartphones, large appliances, TVs, home & kitchen products, consumer electronics, fashion & beauty and more. Apart from top brands, the ‘Finale Days’ will also offer the opportunity to choose from the largest selection of products from thousands of small & medium businesses along with a unique selection from Amazon’s various programs such as Local Shops, Amazon Launchpad, Amazon Saheli and Amazon Karigar.
Customers can enjoy up to 40% off on the latest Smartphones and accessories from top brands; Up to 75% off on Large Appliances and TVs; Up to 70% off on Amazon Fashion and up to 80% off on Home & Kitchen products. They can also avail up to INR 30,000 off on Laptops; Up to 50% off on Amazon Devices – Echo, Fire TV and Kindle.
Customers can save big with 10% instant bank discount on SBI Credit Cards on a minimum order value of INR 5,000 and above. Customers can extend their budget with Amazon Pay Later and No cost EMI on leading Credit Cards, Debit Cards and Bajaj Finserv cards, and also get unlimited Reward Points with Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card. Moreover, with Amazon Pay, they can get daily shopping rewards worth INR 500 on Diwali shopping using Amazon Pay UPI, send Diwali shagun with instant money transfer and Amazon Pay gift cards.
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