E-commerce brands focus on Tier 2, 3 shoppers during festivals

New Delhi: Indian shoppers in non-metro cities are spoilt for choice in the festival season, what with leading e-commerce brands falling over each other to take their lifestyle products to Tier II and Tier III cities in a bid to penetrate deeper into the Indian market.

While Flipkart Fashion is gearing up for its biggest edition of The Big Billion Day sales with 100+ leading fashion brands from September 29 to October 4, Amazon's Great Indian Festival is bringing to consumers deals on fashion and.0 beauty on those days. And Snapdeal's 'Snap-Diwali' sale runs from September 29 to October 6. Snapdeal has also announced two other sales, which will run in the second and third weeks of October.

To widen its presence in Tier II and Tier III cities, Flipkart recently introduced a Hindi interface for its customers. It has also announced bringing onboard 27,000 kiranas across 700 cities to enhance its pan-India supply chain.

In a similar outreach effort, Amazon Festive Yatra plans to take its products directly to customers in 13 cities - Agra, Chennai, Indore, Kolkata, Kochi, Mathura, Mumbai and Visakhapatnam.

"We are continuously working and offering a unique selection that customers have never seen before. Reason why 65 per cent of our sales come from tier II, III and IV towns and cities. More than 80 per cent of the new customers of Amazon come from these places and one out of every three customers purchase from the fashion category," Mayank Shivam, Director - Category Management, Amazon Fashion, India told IANS.

Snapdeal's e-commerce major also focuses on the aspirations of smaller towns and middle-class consumers, and expects 85 per cent of its sales to come from non-metro tier II and tier III users.

According to a Snapdeal spokesperson, "This year's sale is designed to capture the needs of customers from tier II and tier III markets. With the aspirations of smaller towns and middle-class consumers growing faster, we see immense potential in the market. India's consumption is moving to $1 trillion with only 10 per cent of that coming from organised retail. This season, we are expecting more than 85 per cent of our sales to come from non-metro cities."