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Amazon.in’s Great Indian Festival sale, which ended at Sunday midnight, witnessed a sharp spike in customer acquisition, with 85 per cent of the new customers coming from tier II and III cities compared with 70 per cent during last year’s sale, the company said.
This is a significant gain for the e-tailer as it has been sharply focussing on new customer acquisition since its entry into the Indian market in June 2013.
As expected, of the 32 categories on offer, smartphones was the largest selling in value terms and fashion was the largest selling in unit terms with sales of smartphones growing 2.5 times and that of large appliances growing four times over the previous year. Fashion grew seven times in number of units.
“This is our biggest shopping event to date, and has been spectacular for us with 50 per cent of the 32 categories on offer doubling in value terms, over the previous year,” Manish Tiwary, Vice-President - Category Management, Amazon India, told BusinessLine , seven hours before the sale was scheduled to end. “We have achieved what we had set out to achieve — growth across categories and new customer acquisition. In fact, we have exceeded our new customer acquisition target and are well placed to begin the next year with a bang.”
According to Tiwary, while Amazon Prime has been the single largest selling product during the sale, with more customers onboard buying more frequently across categories, Amazon Pay balance has witnessed 27 times uplift in top-ups compared with normal days. Amazon devices – Kindle and Fire TV Stick — have grown 20 times.
Cash burnAsked if the company’s cash burn this season has doubled over the previous year’s with deep discounts running in to as much as 90 per cent, Tiwary said: “It is the brands and sellers who fund the discounts offered during the sale; we just enable them. We invest in infrastructure throughout the year and now have 41 fulfilment centres vs 27 last year.”
Amazon has opened up new pincodes with deliveries to villages in Ladakh, Leh, Andamans and Lakshadweep. It has witnessed a sharp spike in sales in the North East, especially in Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, and now services 98 per cent of the pincodes with over 60 per cent growth in sellers over the previous year, the firm said.
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