India e-festival: How Paytm Mall will take on Amazon-Flipkart supremacy

After winning last year’s make-or-break Diwali sale battle, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart is planning to add a large number of new customers and extend its lead over arch-rival Amazon for the coming Big Billion Days.

The Big Billion Sale, which is slated for 20-24 September, will see products and brands with a host of consumer financing programs such as No Cost EMI, Product Exchange, Buy Back Guarantee and Buy Now Pay Later, along with special offers for SBI Debit & Credit card holders.

The company was also in talks to launch EMI on Debit card on partnering with SBI and Axis Bank.

To boom its e-commerce platform, Flipkart-owned digital payments app PhonePe, has tied up with 25,000 merchants, to accept UPI payments through its app.

Also Read: Flipkart holds talk with distributors, to sell refurbished smartphones by Diwali

The Singapore-headquartered e-tailer is betting on smartphones, televisions, and refrigerators to drive sales as well as on fashion, accessories and home & furniture products to lure new users, a majority of whom will be women, according to its estimates.

Calling it a ”big loot", Flipkart will put up television, refrigerators, split ACs and washing machines for a grand sale at up to 70% off.

On smaller electronic items, it will also offer freebies on best-selling DSLR cameras, exchange offers on printers and no cost EMIs on Apple iPads.

“Our focus this year is to ensure a high uniqueness quotient to our selection across categories,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart

Flipkart, which acquired ebay.in last month, had launched a global programme to enable its sellers to sell to customers worldwide in partnership with eBay.

The company’s ‘Flipkart Global’ initiative targets to push ‘Made in India’ products to Indian diaspora

How Amazon will tackle Flipkart's hype

Unsurprisingly, the Indian arm of Amazon with its flagship sale-Amazon Great Indian Festival starts on September 21 and will continue till September 24.

Also Read: Amazon has become most preferred shopping platform, taking lead over Flipkart

These Amazon sale dates, set up a clash with the next Flipkart Big Billion Days sale(Sep 20- 24). Even though the Amazon sale will be open to everyone on September 21, Prime members will get early access to the deals, starting at noon September 20.

The e-commerce company has set 3 fulfillment centers ahead of festive season, of which Hyderabad was the largest so far, and it is eyeing high-density and popular cities like Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and NCR to serve its local customers in the country.

Last month the company had poured in Rs 400 crore more into its Indian logistics arm to expand its business operations.

Highlights of Amazon Great Indian Festival

The website will provide over 6,000 offers on Amazon exclusive products as part of the sale.

It will offer over 40,000 offers across 4 days, with new deals every hour, including around 500 offers on mobiles and over 2,500 offers on electronic items.

There will be over 10,000 offers on home appliances and 300,000 offers on Amazon Fashion items.

Paytm Mall to join hands with massive offers

Close on the heels of these Indian e-commerce companies starting their festive sales, Paytm e-commerce-owned Paytm Mall is also coming out with a four-day, Mera Cashback Sale – which will be held from 20th to 23rd September this year.

Apart from giving its customers a chance to win Paytm Gold, it has set aside Rs 501 crore worth of cashback for its customers.

According to the company, Paytm Mall is offering 100% cashback on smartphones for 25 lucky buyers every day and a daily chance for 200 customers to win Paytm Gold.

This is over and above a wide range of cashback offers from Paytm this season with an array of offers on products from several top brands such as Apple, Samsung, LG, Oppo, Vivo, Sony, HP, Lenovo, JBL, Philips, including several others.

During the four-day sale, Paytm Mall’s ‘Mera Cashback Sale’ will be accompanied with Paytm Lifafa. The deal will extend from movie vouchers, extra cashback, and special offers along with a chance for 200 lucky customers to win Paytm Gold everyday.

Also Read: Paytm to scan third party QR codes, aims to bring 10 Mn merchants

To rub shoulders with the major e-tailers in India, Paytm has been aggressively investing in its e-commerce arm, logistics network and O2O model.

The home-grown digital commerce and payments company Paytm was planning to acquire Little, a hyperlocal deals marketplace in the online to offline space (O2O), one of its portfolio companies, to accelerate mobile commerce.