Amazon’s Indian shopping fest draws record visitors

Bengaluru: The e-commerce giant Amazon reported record customer visits on its platform during its Great Indian Festival 2023 which ends today, having started on October 8. Until Thursday the number clocked was 1.1 billion.

“With over 38,000 sellers achieving their highest-ever single day sales and more than 40 lakhs new customers shopping for the first time…it was the best-ever festive season for Amazon India and its partners,” the online shopping player said in a statement on Thursday.

According to Amazon, over 750 sellers made sales worth crores of rupees while 31,000-plus sellers made sales worth lakhs, during the period. The platform claimed that its festive discounts and rewards saved Rs 600 crore for customers.

“This festive season, 80% of our customers who shopped, came from tier II/III cities reiterating our strong capabilities of delivering across all serviceable pin codes in India. We also saw the highest ever Prime sign-ups in a single day this season along with the highest seller participation along with 5,000 launches from top brands,” recounted Manish Tiwary, Country Manager, India Consumer Business, Amazon.

Trends across categories

Smartphone sales soared by 2.5x, as compared to the volume done during the festival last year. Interestingly, about 70% of the orders came from tier II cities and smaller towns.

Large-screen TVs (55 inches and above) recorded over 50% rise over the sales seen in 2022.

For consumer electronics and personal computing, three out of five orders came from tier II/ III cities.

The luxury beauty category witnessed an up to 8x spike with increased demand for international brands within fragrances and professional beauty.

One out of four purchases were made on equated monthly installment (EMI) basis, while three out of four products were sold on no cost EMIs.

“We witnessed the highest ever demand observed for categories like jewelry, premium smart watches where new launches grew at almost 5x,” Amazon stated.

For the appliances category, air conditioners led the growth as 45% of the customers expressed preference to upgrade to premium products in the category.