Amazon sees fourfold growth in Prime members this Diwali sale

Key Highlights

• Amazon said its Prime member enrollment doubled from July 2017 and also increased four times during the sale.
• Amazon was offering customers a 'last chance' to enroll for Prime at Rs 499 per year.
• The company is still allowing members to enroll for Rs 499.

E-commerce major, Amazon India on Friday released a report on its recently concluded Diwali sale – Great Indian Festival. In the report the company claimed to have garnered nearly four times the number of regular sign-ups for its exclusive programme – Amazon Prime.

“We saw a 4x (four times) increase in customer sign-ups for Prime,” Amazon said.

During the festive season which kicked off in India with Ganesh Chaturthi, Amazon was advertising for its Prime membership. Amazon Prime is a paid service available in 13 countries and gives shoppers benefits and deals unavailable to others.

Amazon kept up with the promotion of its Prime programme with ads flashing, “Last chance to join Prime at Rs 499 (instead of Rs 999) a year.” This implied that Amazon would later revise the rates of Amazon Prime membership to Rs 999 per year.

“Customers rushed to buy Prime membership before the special introductory price of Rs 499 ends,” Amazon added.

However, Amazon is still offering Prime at Rs 499 per year.

The company said its Prime membership doubled from July 2017 without stating the total number of members. “Prime continued to be a bestseller during the festival with membership doubling since July 2017.” 

Amazon.in hosted its Great Indian Festival in three dedicated sales from September 21 – 24, October 4 – 8 and October 14 – 17. 

During the sales Amazon said that its last sale was ‘its biggest shopping event ever.’ 

As per RedSeer Consulting research in the sale days held from September 20 to 24 Flipkart ate into Amazon's gross merchandise value market share.

“With 86% of new customers from smaller towns and the overwhelming success of our loyalty program Prime, we are excited by the trust customers in every corner of India are placing in Amazon.in to find, discover and buy anything online,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP & Country Head, Amazon India.

“More customers shopped on Amazon.in than anywhere else with orders received from 99.7% of India’s pin codes,” Agarwal added.

The company also said it had amassed ‘more than 44% of total customer share,’ quoting research done by Kantar IMRB’s empaneled survey of 32,000 online consumers in over 200 cities.

Amazon was also offering cashbacks to those who paid with Amazon Pay, the company’s e-wallet. And that too has reaped its rewards as the company said, “35 times increase in the number of customers topping up their Amazon Pay Balance for the first time.” 

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• Five day sale garners Rs 9,000 crore; Flipkart eats into Amazon’s revenue pie