Flipkart wins online festive sales with majority GMV share; number of shoppers jump 87%

Walmart-owned Flipkart Group has emerged as the top e-commerce marketplace during the online festive sales between mid-October to mid-November 2020 with around 66 per cent share of the overall gross merchandise value (GMV) worth $8.3 billion, according to a RedSeer report. Jeff Bezos Amazon’s India business, on the other hand, cornered 34 per cent share. The festive month saw overall online sales up 65 per cent from the year-ago sales worth $5 billion and more than the predicted $7 billion this festive season by the consultancy firm. Importantly, the two e-commerce companies, Amazon and Flipkart, raked in close to 90 per cent of the $8.3 billion GMV, Mrigank Gutgutia, Director E-commerce, RedSeer Consulting told Financial Express Online.

“Lot of customers were holding back on their online purchase due to Covid and potentially waiting for the right opportunity to spend while offline was not operating in a massive way. So, all that spending got transferred to the online channel. This was the general trend. The more specific trend was that Tier-II customers were much more willing to transact online heavily. This benefited Flipkart as it has always been targeting small-town customers,” said Gutgutia.

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The festive season saw 87 per cent growth in the number of customers to 88 million up from 47 million during last year’s sales. Of these 88 million, around 57 per cent came from Tier-II and beyond cities, according to the report. Among the top categories, mobiles continued to dominate this year with 46 per cent share of the $8.3 billion sales vis-à-vis 46 per cent of $5 billion sales last season. Electronics & large appliances and fashion were other leading segments with a share of 29 per cent and 13 per cent respectively in this year’s sales. “Flipkart has done pretty well across the board and leading categories which is mobiles and fashion. They have also done well in large appliances. At an aggregate level they have served the needs of Tier-II customers well as they were the most important segment this year,” added Gutgutia.

While the number of shoppers jumped 1.85x this year to around 88 million from around 47 million last year, the GMV or sales per shopper was reduced by 0.9x to Rs 6,540 ($94) from Rs 7,450 ($106) during the said period as more value buying customers thronged the e-commerce marketplaces who usually spend lesser than their urban counterparts. “They had different shopping preferences to buy more value items compared to typical urban customers. This meant they weren’t shopping for more affordable items.”