Amazon’s $600m Prime Day beats Diwali daily sales – Times of India

Digbijay.Mishra@timesgroup.com
Bengaluru: Amazon India’s Prime Day sales, its first major event after the virus outbreak, have surpassed the daily numbers of its flagship sale during Diwali last year, according to two people aware of the matter. It clocked over $600 million in two days of Prime Day sale last week as demand for products, primarily electronics, surged online after Covid-19 kept shoppers at home. But the gross aggregate numbers for Prime Day sales will still be lower as the Diwali event happens over a five-day period.
Amazon India head Amit Agarwal told TOI that this was its biggest Prime Day ever, without sharing numbers. “Prime Day 2020 was the biggest 48 hours ever for small and medium sellers on Amazon India. We had the highest participation of nearly 1 lakh sellers, who received orders from across 97% of India’s pin codes,” he said.
According to sources, analysts and sellers, initial estimates for Amazon’s flagship sale events were in the range of $400-500 million across 48 hours, but the continued demand for goods via e-commerce and consumers shifting online for their purchases has given a boost to the event. Electronics, smartphones, small and large appliances emerged as top-grossing categories as fashion and food items saw relatively less traction.
“This wasn’t pent-up demand creating a sales spike, but a bigger indicator of overall demand shifting online. Per day Prime Day was much bigger than the biggest day during Diwali,” one of the people mentioned earlier said. Another source confirmed the same. According to an independent seller, his sales (electronic accessories) doubled during Prime Day compared to an average day.
For its popular Prime programme, Amazon India saw new paid subscriber sign-ups doubling as compared to 2019 sale. Up to 65% of new subscribers were from outside the top 10 cities, Agarwal said. Amazon globally has 150 million Prime users but does not disclose India-specific numbers. In India, Prime is also available on a monthly basis besides the annual subscription.
“The reason numbers are better is also because of high-priced categories like smartphones, laptops, and other appliances selling more compared to one of the top segments like fashion during Diwali. But that is relatively low now,” said Satish Meena, senior forecast analyst at Forrester Research, a marketing research firm.
For example, fashion constituted about 24% of Diwali sales last year, but estimates show it would be around 12% now — down to half. The share of appliances (12%) and consumer electronics (16%) would have gone up in 2020 as shoppers buy more items for work-for-home and schooling-from-home.