Amazon India is repositioning itself as a comprehensive business partner rather than just an e-commerce platform, slashing seller fees and introducing artificial intelligence-powered tools ahead of the country's crucial festive shopping season that could determine the year's retail performance.
At the stroke of midnight, live dashboards lit up simultaneously across Amazon India's World Trade Centre headquarters and Flipkart's Outer Ring Road office in Bengaluru. In sprawling "war rooms" at both the companies, executives monitored real-time data streams tracking payment speeds, inventory levels, and delivery logistics as millions of shoppers flooded online platforms.
Festive sales are expected to surge 27 per cent to cross Rs 120,000 crore in 2025, driving Amazon and Flipkart to expand warehousing capacity by millions of cubic feet and extend delivery networks to thousands of new pin codes -- an infrastructure buildout that could reshape India's retail landscape for years.
At present, Flipkart's total seller base is 60,000.
Flipkart has started working on it big day sale around six months ago.
With the festive season approaching, e-tailers are going all out to woo consumers.
Amazon, however, claimed that it is just a service provider and doesn't own goods at any point of sale due to which it is not liable to pay this tax.
CCI investigation into predatory pricing likely
While war rooms are set up closer to the sales, warlike preparations go into it almost 12 months in advance to ensure that on D-day the firm gives its best to its customers.
'Women are taking on key roles in warehouses, such as picking and packing, as well as in our last-mile operations across India.'
E-commerce firm Amazon India has announced the creation of over 110,000 seasonal job opportunities across its operations network as it prepares to serve millions of customers throughout India during the upcoming festival season. These positions include both direct and indirect roles in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Chennai, among others. Notably, Amazon has hired thousands of women and nearly 1,900 individuals with disabilities into its existing network.
'Credit card debt comes with high interest cost and stringent penalties.' 'If you do not repay on time, the costs balloon.'
After making the model work in metro cities, players in the quick commerce sector are rapidly expanding their footprint into smaller tier 2 cities and markets beyond that ahead of the festival season.
Traders' body CAIT has filed a complaint with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs against a Flipkart advertisement featuring Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan on the upcoming Big Billion Days sale, terming the advertisement as "misleading". The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in its complaint to the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) termed the advertisement "misleading" and against the country's small retailers. It has also sought withdrawal of the advertisement, according to a statement. CAIT demanded that a penalty be imposed on Flipkart as per relevant provisions of the Consumer Protection Act for "false or misleading advertisement" and imposition of a Rs 10 lakh fine on Bachchan.
Flipkart, the e-commerce company owned by Walmart, is intensifying its efforts to achieve profitability as it is eyeing a valuation of approximately $60 billion at the time of its initial public offering (IPO), now planned in 2025-2026, instead of this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm might consider listing in the US or any other geography, including India. The company, which counts the likes of Amazon and Reliance's JioMart among its competitors in India's burgeoning e-commerce market, had also contemplated launching an IPO in 2022-2023.
'The World Cup alone is expected to create an additional 100,000 jobs, most of which will comprise gig workers in the delivery space, transportation, hospitality and event management.'
WhatsApp's advantage is that it is the first app millions of Indian check first thing in the morning and innumerable times during the day and night.
E-commerce companies managed to beat the odds by adopting a flexible approach in terms of transforming their business models and leveraging emerging technologies. They had to constantly align their objectives with evolving customer needs. With companies hiring thousands of temporary workers, expanding to smaller cities, and launching new products, e-commerce giants gird up to celebrate the peak festival season without Covid restrictions after a three-year time-out.
Smartphone shipment in India declined by 10 per cent to hit a three-year low of 43 million shipment in the July-September 2022 period, market research firm International Data Corporation said on Monday. The 5G smartphone share reached 36 per cent of total smartphones during the reported quarter with 16 million units at a slightly higher average selling price of $393, about Rs 32,000, apiece compared to $377, about Rs 30,600, in the previous quarter. "India smartphone market declined 10 per cent year-over-year (YoY) shipping 43 million units in July-September 2022.
'E-commerce scams are not new, but what s more alarming is the covert cyber warfare the Chinese entities are launching in India on a repeated basis.'
After years of being sequestered by the pandemic, some intrepid travellers are planning to settle their score with the novel coronavirus. With fewer or no travel curbs, they are eager to get back on the road, again. Hotels and tour operators, too, are eager to shed excess Covid baggage. And this year's Diwali promises to add that extra layer sparkle with the introduction of new flights.
Meesho has emerged as the second-largest player by order share in this year's festive sales till now, surpassing Amazon, while Flipkart Group platforms topped the market in both orders and gross merchandise value (GMV), according to according to a report by consultancy firm Redseer. It said Flipkart Group maintained its leadership position with a 62 per cent market share in terms of GMV during the first week of the festive season, followed by Amazon which had 26 per cent share, while the remaining 12 per cent was distributed among other e-commerce players. In terms of order volume, Flipkart Group again leads the market with about 49 per cent share and SoftBank-backed Meesho ranks second with about 21 per cent order share, according to Redseer.
The 'buy-now, pay-later' (BNPL) juggernaut continued to roll on during the festive season with multiple players seeing disbursals grow by more than 100 per cent compared to Diwali last year. LazyPay, the BNPL platform of Prosus-owned payments major PayU, witnessed a credit demand increase of 300 per cent over the festive season last year, especially in segments like travel, food & beverages and entertainment. "We also saw an uptick of 70 per cent in user acquisition in the last two months.
Last year, traffic jumped 15 times on Snapdeal's 'Big Sale Day' on Oct 6, when it had clocked Rs 1 crore a minute of sales over 10 hours.
E-commerce firms Amazon, Flipkart, and others are expected to witness blockbuster festival season sales of around $9 billion this year, surpassing pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion in 2019. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, with more consumers shopping online at a higher frequency than last year, observed analysts. This year's festival sales (gross merchandise value or GMV) are expected to grow 30 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $4.8 billion during the first week of the season and potentially clock over $9-billion GMV during the whole festival month, revealed consulting firm RedSeer's e-commerce festival season report.
According to sources, the directorate has sent a letter to Flipkart on the basis of complaints received after the Big Billion Day sale on October 6.
'Big Billion Day' scheduled for October 6 is inspired by flat number where co-founders began their journey.
Not displaying the mandatory information, including country of origin, on products sold on their platforms in India, draws government's attention.
Flipkart's Big Billion Days festive sale started on Oct 13.
Instead of making the sellers bleed, experts say, e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart have roped in banks to offer discounts to buyers.
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Buyers complain about server errors, allege discounts were 'not real'.
In an email to customers they say 'Big Billion Day' sale today to eclipse all other multi-day festive sales.
Amid the protests against leading e-commerce firms, Flipkart and Amazon, shipments through the online route in fact witnessed a double-digit growth every quarter.
From new and competitively-priced iPhones to slashing prices of its older models, it had a multi-pronged strategy.
Flipkart's current valuation is an estimated $12 billion.
This was only four days after many aggrieved buyers chose social networking sites to attack Flipkart's 'Big Billion Day' discount this Monday (October 6), followed by an apology from the company's co-founders, Sachin and Binny Bansal.
RIL is setting up infrastructure for a full-fledged horizontal e-commerce offering - internally called the New Commerce - to simultaneously launch pan-India by October-November.
This will be done to meet the massive demand that Flipkart expects during the festive season
Don't hit the buy button as soon as you hear of the next BIG online sale this Diwali. Here are some very important lessons -- in the light of how some online shoppers felt cheated after Flipkart's 'Billion Day Sale' -- that could save you time, money and peace of mind, says Rajiv Raj!
The People's Choice Survey is an annual report by CashKaro.com, which identifies key trends in online shopping in India.
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