Bengaluru: Amazon India’s ‘Great Indian Festival’ sale which starts on 17 October, a day after rival Flipkart begins its Big Billion Days (BBD) event, will focus on small and medium businesses (SMB) and ramping up tools to make shopping more affordable.
If the 2019 sale was about categories and discounts, the 2020 sale edition is large about large numbers of SMBs in a seller-oriented market.
The e-commerce firm will offer over 4 crore products from SMBs and have around 6.5 lakh sellers onboard for the sale, along with over a lakh local shops and kiranas to serve customers.
Amazon and Flipkart’s sale events are typically closely contested, particularly in the smartphone and electronics categories, the largest in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV).
While BBD ends on 21 October, Amazon said on Tuesday that the Great Indian Festival sale will continue until the end of the festive season, culminating with Diwali.
Despite the debate over value buying to be the flavor of the season, with discretionary spends still low, Amazon India expects a mix of buying behavior where festive occasion-led buying will also happen.
Amazon has seen strong smartphone sales online, said Manish Tiwary, vice-president, Amazon India.
“There is good demand for smartphones in the mid-range. We did a survey with 60,000 respondents from both Tier I and II cities and the ₹15,000-25,000 range of smartphones emerged as the sweet spot. People want to upgrade because every household needs more screens today,” Tiwari said. “Customers can expect fresh launches, from big brands including Apple.”
Business buyers can save on Amazon Business with bulk discounts, exclusive deals, lower festive price offers, cashbacks, rewards and more on commercial products from categories like laptops, printers, networking devices, disinfecting devices, office electronics among others, the company said.
Tiwari said Amazon is aiding the buying process by making it more affordable through various finance options from 10% instant bank discount on HDFC Bank debit and credit cards and EMI transactions, no-cost EMI on debit and credit cards and Bajaj FinServ, exchange offers, exciting offers from other leading
“We are dialing up our exchange program in terms of the number of places and products. The Amazon Pay Later scheme, which was introduced in April, has also picked up. The no-cost EMI scheme on debit and credit cards is there. We believe high average selling price (ASP) in large appliances, smartphone categories will be helped by these schemes,” he added.
Amazon has 60 fulfillment centres and has created 200 plus last mile stations. It has said around 100,000 people will be hired for the festive season.
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