Amazon and Flipkart push forward sale season to September

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Aug 3, 2017

As Ganesh Chaturthi falls two weeks earlier than 2016, e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart have announced they will start their festive season early this year and schedule other sales too.

Festive sales usually begin in October in India in preparation for the upcoming festivities that include Diwali and end with Christmas at the end of December. However, this year they will begin early as Amazon and Flipkart both announced that they will commence theirs in mid-September. Moreover, Flipkart has organised a “Big Billion Days” sale for mid-September to prelude their holiday reductions. Amazon will host a Great Indian Festival Sale at the same time. Sales will focus on fashion and electronics.

Shoppers do not have to wait until September, however, to start seeing reductions as both Amazon and Flipkart have also organised August sales. Many sales have been taking place recently in an attempt to start shifting stock again after pre-GST implementation buying meant that the start of July saw slow sales. Supply chains had also been affected by the introduction of the new tax and many brands are currently in recovery mode.

Festive sales amount to a large portion of revenue for big businesses and last year Amazon grossed a GMV of around 2660 crore rupees (approximately 400 million dollars) and Flipkart amassed a GMV of 3330 crore rupees (around 500 million dollars). As e-commerce continues to grow in India, albeit at a slower rate year on year, Flipkart followed by Amazon are leading the online market. Satish Meena, senior forecast analyst at Forrester India, stated that, “This year, we expect the combined GMV to grow from $900 million to $1.2-1.5 billion during the Big Billion Days sale by Flipkart and Great Indian Festival sale by Amazon.”