Flipkart’s annual flagship event, The Big Billion Days started on a positive note, with early trends reflecting upbeat consumer sentiment in the country and the growth that Flipkart has enabled for MSMEs and sellers. TBBD, this year, is also one of the most inclusive and sustainable in its eight-year history with the Flipkart app being available in 11 Indian languages.
Flipkart has designed and disbursed ‘BBD Shagun’ (a special reward) for its customers this year. More than Rs. 2-crore have been redeemed by over 250,000 customers under this offering in the first 12 hours of Early Access. The curated offerings of ‘BBD Specials’ continued to be a customer favourite, with over 100,000 customers placing orders for the products in the first 12 hours of Early Access. Early Access for Flipkart Plus customers saw a 40% growth as compared to last year. Interestingly, 45% of customer demand has been from tier 3 cities and beyond.
One in five customers has chosen to exchange their smartphone for a new one, with 82.60% of customers choosing to pay for their next smartphone using prepaid payment options. The demand for large appliances and electronics is evident from the fact that TVs are the largest-selling category in home appliances, with laptops recording top numbers in electronics.
Financial constructs such as Flipkart Pay Later, no-cost EMI and Flipkart Axis Bank co-branded credit card are enabling customers to avail easy credit to make high-value purchases. The ‘Flipkart Pay Later’ facility accounts for the second-highest share, after credit cards, in pre-paid orders. ‘Flipkart Pay Later’ and ‘Flipkart Pay Later EMI’ continues to see excellent customer adoption, with a 10x jump in the daily transactions since the sale started. There are 124 new cities/towns from where sellers transacted in the first 24 hours. Flipkart has onboarded over 1-lakh kiranas for its last-mile delivery program, and has significantly expanded its supply chain. The new warehouses have generated lakhs of seasonal job opportunities in supply chain roles. This festive season as well, Flipkart has added 1,15,000 jobs.
