What do Amazon & Flipkart have in store for festive sales?

The 2017 festive sales have begun with a great bang and as expected, rivals Amazon and Flipkart are ready with their best moves to win the shopping battle this year.

Here’s what the ecommerce biggies are offering and expecting this festive season.

Flipkart to focus on news users and women buyers during Big Billion

This Big Billion sale event, the Indian ecommerce leader is looking to add new buyers to its user base. Not that existing users won’t get attention, but the marketplace has special strategies in place to attract new customers.

The etailer hopes that product categories like fashion, accessories, furniture and home care products would bring in fresh batch of users, in particular women shoppers. On the other hand, existing buyers would gladly shop for smartphones, refrigerators, televisions and other large appliances, according to Flipkart.

“Last year’s Big Billion Days was a lot about tapping into your existing user base, a lot about reactivating lapsed customers. But this year’s Big Billion Days will be about a mixture of growing our repeat customers and also about growing new users in triple digit numbers. Because of the telecom players making inroads into the Tier 2-3 cities and towns, over the past few months we have seen a huge increase in the number of Tier 2-3 shoppers,” disclosedSmrithi Ravichandran, senior director at Flipkart.

The biggie wants to increase the number of women buyers on its platform. One of the reasons for this is that women spend more time shopping online compared to men shoppers, as per Flipkart’s internal data. Ravichandran shared that Flipkart is pushing selected categories and bringing big brands exclusively onto the platform to get a new set of female users during Big Billion Days.

Amazon India to offer 3-month EMI holiday

Trust Amazon to come up with unique buyer-friendly schemes. The US-based ecommerce biggie is giving away three months EMI holiday to its buyers in association with HDFC bank. Under this offer, customers can buy now and pay next year if they make the purchases using HDFC credit card. The marketplace’s main objective is to make shopping affordable during the festive season. And giving a three months break from EMI is aligned with that objective.

Speaking about this scheme, Arun Srinivasan, category leader of consumer electronics at Amazon India shared,

“For smartphones, we have invested a lot on affordability. As smartphones are slightly higher priced affordability becomes very important. This is the feature that makes the products more affordable for the customers during the sale season where the customer would be buying multiple products. The EMI holiday for 3 months will be very useful for the customers.”

Although, the offer would not be limited to smartphones.

Amazon’s huge discounts on FMCG

This would also be the first Great Indian Festival after Amazon got government’s approval to sell food directly. The etailer thinks that this would be a great opportunity to expand its market share in the online FMCG industry.

Therefore, Amazon would offer:

• 35% discount on makeup and beauty products
• 70% on baby care products
• 50% on laundry and personal care products
• 40% discount on food items

“While Amazon has first-mover advantage in the FMCG space, it wants to create an impact during the festive sales in this category since consumers would buy grocery products weekly or fortnightly and hence there’s a bigger opportunity for customer recall,” said one of the people cited above. “The repeat purchase opportunity is more since a consumer will not buy a mobile phone or apparel as frequently as FMCG and hence it is asking sellers to forsake profit margins for the sale,” a source revealed.

Flipkart’s CEO sets 70-30 lead over Amazon target

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart’s CEO is a hard task-master. And he has communicated to his team that Flipkart should gain a 70-30 lead over arch rival Amazon this festive season.

“Our CEO (Kalyan Krishnamurthy) has told us nothing less than a 70-30 (lead over Amazon) will do,” stated Ravichandran.

All the preparations are directed towards broadening their lead, she added.

As for Amazon, the American etailer is pretty confident that this year’s Great Indian Festival would be the biggest of all.

What do Amazon & Flipkart have in store for festive sales?

The 2017 festive sales have begun with a great bang and as expected, rivals Amazon and Flipkart are ready with their best moves to win the shopping battle this year.

Here’s what the ecommerce biggies are offering and expecting this festive season.

Flipkart to focus on news users and women buyers during Big Billion

This Big Billion sale event, the Indian ecommerce leader is looking to add new buyers to its user base. Not that existing users won’t get attention, but the marketplace has special strategies in place to attract new customers.

The etailer hopes that product categories like fashion, accessories, furniture and home care products would bring in fresh batch of users, in particular women shoppers. On the other hand, existing buyers would gladly shop for smartphones, refrigerators, televisions and other large appliances, according to Flipkart.

“Last year’s Big Billion Days was a lot about tapping into your existing user base, a lot about reactivating lapsed customers. But this year’s Big Billion Days will be about a mixture of growing our repeat customers and also about growing new users in triple digit numbers. Because of the telecom players making inroads into the Tier 2-3 cities and towns, over the past few months we have seen a huge increase in the number of Tier 2-3 shoppers,” disclosedSmrithi Ravichandran, senior director at Flipkart.

The biggie wants to increase the number of women buyers on its platform. One of the reasons for this is that women spend more time shopping online compared to men shoppers, as per Flipkart’s internal data. Ravichandran shared that Flipkart is pushing selected categories and bringing big brands exclusively onto the platform to get a new set of female users during Big Billion Days.

Amazon India to offer 3-month EMI holiday

Trust Amazon to come up with unique buyer-friendly schemes. The US-based ecommerce biggie is giving away three months EMI holiday to its buyers in association with HDFC bank. Under this offer, customers can buy now and pay next year if they make the purchases using HDFC credit card. The marketplace’s main objective is to make shopping affordable during the festive season. And giving a three months break from EMI is aligned with that objective.

Speaking about this scheme, Arun Srinivasan, category leader of consumer electronics at Amazon India shared,

“For smartphones, we have invested a lot on affordability. As smartphones are slightly higher priced affordability becomes very important. This is the feature that makes the products more affordable for the customers during the sale season where the customer would be buying multiple products. The EMI holiday for 3 months will be very useful for the customers.”

Although, the offer would not be limited to smartphones.

Amazon’s huge discounts on FMCG

This would also be the first Great Indian Festival after Amazon got government’s approval to sell food directly. The etailer thinks that this would be a great opportunity to expand its market share in the online FMCG industry.

Therefore, Amazon would offer:

• 35% discount on makeup and beauty products
• 70% on baby care products
• 50% on laundry and personal care products
• 40% discount on food items

“While Amazon has first-mover advantage in the FMCG space, it wants to create an impact during the festive sales in this category since consumers would buy grocery products weekly or fortnightly and hence there’s a bigger opportunity for customer recall,” said one of the people cited above. “The repeat purchase opportunity is more since a consumer will not buy a mobile phone or apparel as frequently as FMCG and hence it is asking sellers to forsake profit margins for the sale,” a source revealed.

Flipkart’s CEO sets 70-30 lead over Amazon target

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart’s CEO is a hard task-master. And he has communicated to his team that Flipkart should gain a 70-30 lead over arch rival Amazon this festive season.

“Our CEO (Kalyan Krishnamurthy) has told us nothing less than a 70-30 (lead over Amazon) will do,” stated Ravichandran.

All the preparations are directed towards broadening their lead, she added.

As for Amazon, the American etailer is pretty confident that this year’s Great Indian Festival would be the biggest of all.

Amazon unveils first Fashion Studio in India, fashion included its top-3 categories

Amazon Fashion is trying to catch up with Myntra, fashion arm of rival Flipkart. In just 6 months it achieved 90% growth. The US-based online marketplace is giving this segment everything it’s got. It recently introduced the Amazon Fashion Studio in Gurugram. This is a facility that provides allied services like top-quality catalogue imaging to fashion sellers on the Amazon.in platforms.

BLINK by Amazon

The Amazon Fashion Studio is called BLINK and is the third of its kind in the world. Apart form India, Amazon has on in London and New York.

The Gurugram studio –

• Comprises of 44,000 sq. ft. and includes 16 photography bays
• A ramp and presentation area are available for photo and video shoots
• Enclosed workspaces for Amazon and fashion sellers to collaborate and create multimedia/ trend video content for new collections or to simply push through brand marketing channels

BLINK is an extension of Amazon’s cataloguing and imaging services. This global business vertical offers online sellers low-budget photography for their products.

Amazon Fashion India Head, Arun Sirdeshmukh said, “It’s (the Gurugram studio) a very exciting space for imaging, video content and a space where we will collaborate with brands to ensure that this is the next in the Fashion journey for us in India.”

The studio doubles as a premium venue for the launch of a new fashion collection or hosting other fashion events claimed Sirdeshmukh.

“We have photographers, models, stylists, video editors, and other resources. We are constantly looking at new ways of collaboration,” he added.

Amazon’s focus on fashion

Fashion has been a primary focus at Amazon.in. This has resulted in it becoming one of the top 3 categories for the marketplace. A study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Facebook states that online fashion retail will dominate ecommerce by 2020. And, a recent report from the two claims that by that time the current worth of fashion ecommerce will jump from $7-9 billion to $30 billion. This is expected to happen all on account of smartphone penetration in non-urban cities. Another report by BCG stated that rural internet users will surge to 28 crore by 2018.

Sirdeshmukh said, “We run several businesses under the Amazon Fashion umbrella; there is jewellery, footwear, clothing, accessories and luggage and so on. Each of those businesses, quarter on quarter grow between 80-100%, while growth in H1 (first half of 2017) was 90% (for the entire fashion category).”

Amazon believes it is the leader in online fashion when it comes to selections. To its list of 15,000 fashion labels, Amazon has added 50 international brands. It will add more to feature new collections on Amazon.in first.

Personalisation – Flipkart’s mantra for Big Billion Days?

Over the years, Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale event has become bigger (and more successful as per the ecommerce player) each year. Starting tomorrow, until 24^th September, online shoppers will be tempted with offers and promotions by the etailer.

“Over the years, Big Billion Days sale has emerged as the name synonymous with festive shopping in the country, bringing more and more Indians to shop online. Fashion is one of the biggest categories which will drive more than 60% of all sales during this event,” Rishi Vasudeva, Head of Fashion & Lifestyle at Flipkart, told IANS.

Fashion, as always, the centre of attention

Fashion product category always attracts the maximum sales in ecommerce. According to a Flipkart official, the category is expected to bring in 60% of sales during Big Billion Days (BBD). A 17x increase in sales is expected on the first day itself, when compared to the other days.

“In a run up to festive season, Flipkart Fashion has significantly scaled selection topped with exclusive ranges from popular brands, crazy deals and countless choices,” Vasudeva added.

Personalisation to attract more customers

No doubt, scaling up is the point of such sale events. Flipkart will introduce personalization, wherein specific products and offers will be directed at customers to improve their shopping experience.

“It is a culmination of inventions through the year. This event is about scale and that makes it challenging and nerve-wracking,” said Ram Papatla, vice-president of product management.

In this year itself, Flipkart has been testing some new features to grab the attention of customers:

• Audience targeting
• ‘Buy now and pay later’ offers
• Instalments for debit card purchases
• Various EMI options

Amazon ties-up with Bank of Baroda to offer micro loans to sellers

Ecommerce player Amazon today said it has tied up with state-run lender Bank of Baroda to offer micro loans to its sellers. The loans will be offered on invite-only basis to the marketplace sellers. The programme was piloted by Amazon in July this year in association with the bank.

The loans will be extended in the range of Rs one lakh to Rs 25 lakh at an annual interest rates between 10.45 per cent and 11.5 per cent RPT 10.45 per cent and 11.5 per cent.

“We clearly understand the specific needs of SMEs for ecommerce business and are proud to partner with Amazon India to provide comprehensive banking solutions to their over 2 lakh seller base,” the banks managing director and CEO, P S Jayakumar, told reporters here today.

He said the bank expects to get on board 15 to 20 per cent of Amazon sellers on this programme in the next one year. The sellers on Amazon will receive pre-approved indicative offers from the bank for the loan amount they are eligible. They will be able to use their sale disbursements on the Amazon marketplace to directly repay the loan.

“Through our engagement with sellers, we realised that the lack of financial resources can hinder the growth of small businesses as they scale up which can impact expansion, especially ahead of the festive sales,” Amazon India director and general manager (seller services) Gopal Pillai said.

Currently, loans are offered on an invite-only basis to the marketplace sellers who qualify against various criteria, including account tenure, sellers selling history, customer feedback and compliance with the ecommerce player.