Flipkart’s festive sale report card: 110 orders placed per second; 10 million shipments delivered

Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday said that the first five days of its The Big Billion Days sale saw 110 orders placed every second. The company claimed 10 million shipments out of which 3.5 million deliveries were done through its kirana partners in comparison to 1 million deliveries during last year’s sale. Among other metrics disclosed by Flipkart included 1.5X number of ‘transacting’ sellers vis-à-vis last year of whom over 35 per cent had 3X more sales in comparison to the 2019 sale. Moreover, the number of crorepati and lakhpati sellers increased 1.5X and 1.7X respectively. Flipkart, however, didn’t disclose data around the total number of sellers participating, the number and amount of goods sold, the total number of customers buying goods during the sale, and more.

Flipkart added that the sale had over 35 per cent new seller base from last year and around 60 percent of the sellers were from Tier-II and III towns, according to a statement. Its Flipkart Samarth programme, which focuses on artisans and weavers, claimed Flipkart, had 7X growth in the number of sellers. Among key categories were mobiles, which saw 2X growth in customers ‘visiting’ the category, fashion wherein 1,500 ‘new cities shopped’ for the category, large appliances sale that was driven by Tier-III customers followed by electronics, furniture, beauty, general merchandise and home, offices and institutes.

Also read: Amazon, Flipkart, others sold $3.1 billion worth goods in this many days of festive season’s first sale

“Since its launch in 2014, Flipkart has led spending during the festive month due to its strength in the smartphone and fashion categories, which account for around 50 per cent of total online retail sales in India. This year, Flipkart has also launched 22 smartphone models since mid-September to maintain the lead,” said Satish Meena, Senior Forecast Analyst, Forrester in a company’s blog post last week. During festive month (October 15 to November 15) 2020 also, smartphone and fashion will account for 50 per cent of total sales, allowing Flipkart to maintain the lead, he added.

According to latest data from consulting firm RedSeer, e-commerce sector has already generated 77 per cent — $3.1 billion of the forecasted sales worth $4 billion during the first 4.5 days of the first leg of festive sales. On the other hand, Forrester had pegged online retail sales to be around $4.8 billion in the first week itself of October 15 to 21 — 75 per cent of the overall around $6.5 billion expected sales between October 15 and November 15.