E-commerce platforms clock sales of ₹24,500 crore in festive week sales: Report

E-commerce platforms clocked sales of ₹24,500 crore or $3.5 billion in the first four days of the festive season sales that commenced last week driven by categories such as mobile phones and fashion, Redseer Strategy Consultant’s said in a report released on Tuesday. 

This signals a better-than-expected start to the online festive season sales, the consulting firm said in a report assessing the performance of the first leg of the online sales events. Redseer defines the first festive event as the first run of festive sales—including Flipkart’s Big Billion Day Sale, Amazon’s ‘Great Indian Festival’, Meesho’s ‘Mega Blockbuster Sale’, and sales on platforms like Myntra, Ajio, Nykaa, amongst others.  

“For the first four days (22nd September to 25th September), e-commerce platforms have clocked in a sale of ₹24,500 crores or $3.5 billion, contributing to 60% of the projected gross merchandise value or GMV for festive sale 1. The first four days of the previous year contributed to 59%, signalling a better-than-anticipated kickoff to the festive season this year,” Redseer said. 

Demand was led by categories such as fashion and mobile phones.  

“Mobile phones continue to do well, driven by upgrade programs and new launches supported by value offers. Mobiles saw a 10 times growth in daily average gross merchandise value from business-as-usual days. For the first four days, an estimated ₹11,000 crore mobiles were sold from the large e-commerce players,” the report added.  

An estimated 60-70 lakh mobile units were sold in the first four days of the sales event. E-commerce platforms along with their partners were able to bring the aspirational brands such as Apple’s I-phone and OnePlus at reasonable price-points, the firm said. 

To be sure—e-commerce marketplaces usually hold up to three sales leading to the festival of Diwali. The first of these sales is usually the largest and accounts for more than 50% of the sales during the festive period.  

Companies also ramp up their back-end and spend money on marketing budgets to draw in new shoppers and amp up demand.  

For online retailers, the first four days of the festive period saw the overall daily average gross merchandise value rise to 5.4 times compared to business-as-usual days or non-sale days. “First four days of festive sale this year is 1.3 times the first four days in previous year festive sale,” said the report.  

“Redseer had earlier projected a GMV of $5.9 billion (₹41,000 crore) for festive sale 1 and as expected, we are on track to achieve this figure. 60% of our forecast is already achieved in the first 4 days of sale,” said Sanjay Kothari, Associate Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants.  

Meanwhile, according to Redseer analysis, an estimated ₹5,500 crore worth of fashion goods were sold in the first four days of these sales.