Great Indian Festival sale to be bigger than last year: Amazon VP

E-commerce major Amazon expects its biggest-ever festival season sale this year. The company revealed this ahead of its Great Indian Festival sale, poised to begin on October 8, with 24-hour early access for its Prime members on October 7.

 “We expect it (sale) to be much bigger than last year. Last year was our best-ever sale, setting a precedent. We anticipate surpassing that this year,” Saurabh Srivastava, Vice President, Amazon India, told Business Standard.

The e-commerce giant will lock horns with its Walmart-owned rival Flipkart, who will also host its annual flagship sale event – The Big Billion Days– from October 8 to October 15.

Amazon, on Friday, also launched its ‘Amazon Xperience Arena’ event in Delhi-NCR. The subsequent editions of the event will be held in Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata. 

Festival season sales this year are expected to be significantly bigger than last year, with online sales in India expected to be 15 per cent higher than in the same period last year, according to Redseer Strategy Consultants. Moreover, e-commerce retailers are expected to garner sales worth Rs 90,000 crore during the period, 18-20 per cent higher than last year.

As many as 81 per cent of consumers intend to shop online during this festive season, while one in two consumers are willing to increase their spending compared to last year, according to a study conducted by Nielsen Media, commissioned by Amazon India.

Regardless, Amazon is expected to face stiff competition from its rivals, Flipkart and Meesho, this year as well. Last year, Meesho – who recently turned profitable for the first time ever – overtook Amazon in terms of order volume, to become the second largest player by order share behind Flipkart, a Redseer report indicated.

“We don’t obsess over our competition. We obsess over our customers. Our focus is to offer customers a wider selection of products, faster and more reliable deliveries and better offers…We don’t really think about what the competition is doing,” Srivastava said.

The company is also witnessing an uptick in Prime memberships from across the country. Amazon Prime is a subscription membership that offers premium services to its customers.

“Something that is very encouraging for us is that we are seeing a lot of new Prime customers coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, aside from metros. We are seeing a trend where it (Prime membership) is being adopted across the country,” Srivastava said.

Although he did not reveal the total number of Prime members in India, Amazon’s global Prime memberships crossed 200 million last year.

Amazon’s recent partnership with the Indian Railways and India Post is also expected to aid the company in making faster deliveries during the festival season.

“If you want to serve the entirety of India with fast and reliable deliveries, you need to leverage the existing infrastructure. Our partnership with the Indian Railways and India Post is a win for them, for customers and for Amazon,” Srivastava said.

This festival season, Amazon is also bullish on Fashion and Beauty. The e-commerce major announced Delhi as one of the top-performing cities for this category.

“For fashion and beauty enthusiasts, we have over thousands of new launches from over 50+ brands on Amazon.in. Delhi is one of the top performing cities for Amazon Fashion. We have observed an increase in demand for premium products from Delhi’s fashion enthusiasts and Gen Zs are opting for K-pop-inspired (Korean) and nostalgia-driven trends, such as ’90s and early 2000s styles,” Srivastava added.