Amazon Prime Day highlight: 35% new Prime membership came from tier II-III cities

Amidst technical glitches, Global e-commerce giant Amazon has concluded its one of biggest festival sale Amazon Prime Day on Tuesday. India, however, remained unaffected by the worldwide snag and witnessed a decent response from the subscription-led sale.

During the 36 hour sale, the e-commerce marketplace claims that it received more than 35 per cent of new members of Prime from tier-II and smaller towns. This essentially shows that the appetite of smaller towns towards paid subscription is increasing.

The annual Prime Day sale also offered cashbacks to customers for topping up their Amazon Pay wallet. The wallet balance also claims to register seven times more than a regular day.

According to an ET report, Redmi Y2 phone, Tata Salt, and the Mi power bank were among the best sellers on Amazon in India during the sale. Smartphone sales surged by 5X while large appliances jumped to 9X from a typical day.

Amazon's third-party sellers claim that the sale of products in categories such as electronics and fast-moving consumer goods spiked but sales for other categories like fashion, lifestyle, home care and others didn't perform well.

The success of Amazon Prime in India may be the result of the company's recent offering of monthly subscription at Rs 129. In comparison to its earlier yearly programme, it is around 55 per cent costlier on an annual basis.

Adoption of prime membership across smaller cities is quite an interesting thing to note. So far, Internet companies and analysts were skeptical of testing paid subscription beyond the top 10 cities.

However, Amazon claim of registering more than one-third growth in subscription membership from tierII and III cities demystify the belief that consumers in these cities can't pay for value-added services such as fast shipping.

Recently, Zomato also had expanded its Zomato Gold and Treat paid membership to over a dozen cities. Given the uptake of paid membership in Bharat (smaller cities), it seems like paid subscriptions can find a firm foot in tier II and III cities.

Globally, Prime members ordered over 100 million products during the Prime Day sale and Amazon also said it surpassed all prior sales records in the e-commerce giant's 24-year history, including every Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Meanwhile, the company's arch rival in India, Flipkart had also announced 'Flipkart Big Shopping Days sale' starting from Monday, July 16 to Thursday, July 19.