Festival sales: of GMVs, units sold and brand recall

Online shoppers across the country who waited patiently until midnight to snap up the best deals offered by Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal from the October 1-5 during the biggest annual festival sale, once again gave Flipkart the thumbs up.

Flipkart received the maximum number of positive comments and the least number of negative mentions on social media.

According to data culled out by social intelligence firm Frrole between October 1-5, Flipkart garnered 73,000 unique user-mentions on Twitter; leaving rival Amazon trailing at 27,200 and Snapdeal at 27,500.

Six months of consistent preparation for the Big Billion Day sale seems to have paid off, as Flipkart tipped consumer mood in its favour, clinching pole position with 205 positive comments, while Amazon and Snapdeal received 136 and 182, respectively, in the same period. This time around, Amazon received the maximum number of negative comments at 146, compared with 90 for Flipkart and 111 for Snapdeal.

BusinessLine had reported similar numbers from Frrole in July, where Flipkart was ahead of Amazon and Snapdeal in the total number of unique mentions, positive comments, most number of ‘active’ and engaged user-mentions and the least number of ‘depressed’ or negative mentions.

“Flipkart has beaten Amazon across all parameters including GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume), total number of units sold (15.5 million) as well as superior brand recall (65 per cent) among consumers, and incurred lowest cash burn during the crucial festival sales days,” said an analyst, who tracks e-commerce firms, on condition of anonymity.

DesiDime, an online shopping community for deals, discounts and coupons, which attracts 1,50,000 visits a day and averages 2,500 transactions a day, witnessed an 8.2x spike in transactions from October 1-5, which touched an all-time high of 14,800 transactions on October 3, a day when mobile deals were the biggest draw.

Every second after midnight on DesiDime witnessed 4,000 shoppers, from October 1-5, compared with 700 shoppers on average days, indicating that shoppers don’t mind midnight shopping to snap the best deals before everyone else.

“While 12 midnight to 1 am was the most preferred time for online shoppers, the next best slot was from 11am to 12 noon, during office hours. For instance, Flipkart sold 600 mobile phones from 12 midnight to 1 am on 3 October on DesiDime because of its exclusive offers,” Mehul Jobanputra, co-founder CEO, DesiDime told BusinessLine .

While Amazon and Flipkart emerged clear winners in the festival sales, Flipkart established an edge over Amazon on DesiDime, by creating more buzz and generating more positive comments, added Jobanputra.

Despite much lower discounting offered by e-tailers this time due to exclusive partnerships with brands, overall sales during the first week of October jumped 40-45 per cent from sales in September 1-5.

And as a result of the bumper sales performance, the industry GMV for e-tailers for the entire festival month of October is expected to be ₹11,000-13,000 crore ($1.7-billion) or $20-23 billion in annualised run-rate terms, observed Anil Kumar, CEO, RedSeer Consulting.

Asked if e-tailers could, hereafter, look forward to increasing sales numbers, given that customers have tasted blood this festival season, Sandeep Ladda, National Leader of Technology and E-commerce Sector Practice, PwC India, said: “There will be a gradual increase in sales momentum from here on, as this sector holds great potential with millions of untapped customers in Tier II, III and IV towns. Along with on-boarding new customers and offering new products that they aspire to buy, e-tailers must provide a world-class user experience that hooks customers to continue to shop online.”