In the first four days — September 22 to September 25 — e-commerce platforms clocked in a sale of Rs 24,500 crore or $3.5 billion, according to a report. The sales contributed 60 percent of the projected gross merchandise value of Rs 41,000 crore for Festive Event 1 against last year's 59 percent — signalling a better-than-anticipated kickoff to the festive season, according to Redseer Strategy Consultant.

Festive Event 1 is the first wave of festive sales, which includes Flipkart’s ‘Big Billion Day Sale’, Amazon’s ‘Great Indian Festival’, Meesho’s ‘Mega Blockbuster Sale’, and sales on platforms like Myntra, Ajio, Nykaa, amongst others.

Redseer report states that the first four days saw the overall daily average GMV rise to 5.4 times compared to business as usual (BAU) days for overall online retail. "First four days of festive sale this year is approximately 1.3 times the first four days in previous year festive sale," said the report.

“Redseer had earlier projected a GMV of $5.9 billion (approximately Rs 41,000 crore) for Festive Sale Event 1, and as expected, we are on track to achieve this figure. Sixty percent of our forecast is already achieved in the first four days of the sale," said Sanjay Kothari, Associate Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants.

E-commerce marketplaces usually hold up to three sales leading to Diwali. The first of these sales is usually the largest and usually accounts for more than half of the sales during the festive period.

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The report also said that mobiles continue to do well, driven by upgrade programs and new launches supported by value offers. Mobiles saw a 10 times growth in daily average GMV from usual days. For the first four days, an estimated Rs 11,000 crore worth of mobiles were sold from the large e-commerce players.

In terms of units, six to seven million mobiles were sold in the first four days. “We expect a total sale of close to nine to 10 million mobiles units for Festive Week 1. We are also seeing premium phones driving mobile growth this year,” Kothari added.

As expected, fashion is also fuelling the festive growth. According to Redseer analysis, an estimated Rs 5,500 crore worth of fashion was sold in the first four days. Fashion saw a 4.5 times jump in terms of daily average GMV from BAU days.

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First Published:Sept 28, 2022 12:03 PM IST