Small cities outshine metros in Amazon, Meesho and Flipkart festive season sales

Non-metro cities dominated the initial days of online festival season sales across leading e-commerce platforms, Amazon, Meesho and Flipkart, according to details shared by e-tailers.

Softbank-backed Meesho during its Blockbuster Sale recorded over 80% of orders from tier 2 and small cities in the first three days. Flipkart on Day 1 of The Big Billion Days registered over 60% of orders from non-metro cities.

"Over 60 per cent of orders were placed from Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities," Flipkart said in a statement citing sales data on October 7.

Amazon said over 80% of customers on its platform came from non-metro cities during the initial days of its festive sale "Great Indian Festival".

Flipkart claimed 9.1 crore visits on Day 1 of The Big Billion Days (TBBD) while Amazon registered 9.5 crore customer visits in the first 48 hours.

Both platforms saw mobile phones among the top choices for customers.

Amazon said the most preferred smartphone brands on its platform were OnePlus, Samsung, and Apple.

"Customers purchased more than 100 OnePlus smartphones every minute in the first 48 hours of the sale (2.5 times more than in 2022). Samsung drove premium phone demand, with their flagship Galaxy S Series growing 3 times over the last year," the company said.

Amazon paid subscribers or Prime members shopped 18 times more in the first 24 hours of the sale compared to the average daily purchase.

The company claimed Prime Members purchased over 75 smartphones per second in the opening hour.

"4 out of every 5 smartphones sold in the first 48 hours were 5G ready. Amongst all smartphones sold, 75 per cent were purchased by customers coming from Tier 2 -3 cities and towns and beyond. Premium smartphones (priced above Rs 30,000), witnessed 3 times growth versus last year," the company said.

Amazon saw a rise in customer's demand for premium gadgets.

"Customers shopped for 35% more premium smartwatches in the first 48 hours as compared to last year. 10 Premium active noise cancelling headphones were bought by customers every minute," the company said.

Demand for tablets during the Amazon festive sale saw 2 times growth while demand for laptops rose by more than 40 per cent as compared to last year.

Amazon said that demand for large-screen TVs witnessed a record growth of 260 per cent year-on-year.

"Customers shopped for one TV per second with 80% of all orders coming from Tier 2 and 3 cities and towns. 4K TVs were the most preferred," Amazon said.

Flipkart said that Mobiles, Appliances, Lifestyle, BGM (Beauty and General Merchandise), Electronics and Home remain the top choices for customers across India.

"Smartphones in the over Rs 20,000 segment witnessed a surge in demand among Metro and Tier 2 and beyond audiences alike. Further, Lifestyle, Electronics and Beauty and General Merchandise(including Fitness) have played a key role in new customer acquisition," the statement said.

Flipkart's travel arm Cleartrip recorded interest of customers in travelling to non-metro cities such as Goa, Jaipur, Udaipur, Varanasi, Ooty with Goa, Kochi, Jaipur, Srinagar and Chandigarh emerging as top air travel non-metro destinations.

Meesho spokesperson said more than 80% of orders on the platform originated from the tier 2 and smaller cities of India like Dhanbad, Chittorgarh, Erode, Jabalpur, Kurnool, Tezpur and Vapi.

The firm recorded more than 15 orders per second across categories such as footwear, fashion accessories as well as home and kitchen.

"More than 30,000 sellers saw over 2X growth in orders during the onset of the sale. Top selling products included sarees, watches, Bluetooth headphones and toys," Meesho spokesperson said.

E-commerce companies were estimated to have generated a total sale of around Rs 40,000 crore during the first phase of the festive season sales.

A recent report by the market research firm projects online sales during the upcoming festive season to grow by 18-20% and touch Rs 90,000 crore this year.

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