Amazon advances festive sale date, GIF to now start on Oct 3

 A day after Flipkart advanced its festive day sale, rival Amazon India has also made a similar move by announcing the start of its sale event Great Indian Festival (GIF) from October 3.

The competition between the two giants is expected to be intense, similar to previous years, as both will see their festive sale now starting on October 3.

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While Flipkart's The Big Billion Days (TBBD) sale is an eight-day event, Amazon India's GIF will be a month-long affair.

"Our top priority remains customer trust and the interest of our sellers, especially the lakhs of small sellers and the tens of thousands of local shop owners across India. We continue to innovate for our partners, small businesses and customers, as they gear up for the upcoming festive season," an Amazon spokesperson said on Sunday.

The spokesperson added that the Amazon GIF will now start from October 3, 2021, and Prime members will have early access.

The company will share further details on the specifics of Prime Early Access soon.

On Tuesday, Flipkart had announced that the eighth edition of TBBD will be held from October 7-12 this year. However, on Saturday, the Walmart-owned company advanced the opening date to October 3. The TBBD will now end on October 10.

On Friday, Amazon had announced that it will host its month-long festive season sale - GIF - from October 4.

In the past too, the two companies have gone head-to-head during the festive season with their sale events, offering great deals, new launches and attractive affordability options like EMI offers via various partnerships.

Flipkart group company Myntra is also holding its 'Big Fashion Festival' from October 3-10.

E-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart line up new launches and offers to woo shoppers during the festive season, holding multiple sale events that are timed around Dussehra and Diwali.

Players see a large chunk of their annual business coming in during the festive sales and they make significant investments ahead of time to ramp up their capacity and add features to be able to handle the spike in orders, while ensuring a smooth experience for shoppers and sellers.

According to consulting firm RedSeer, e-commerce platforms are expected to potentially clock over USD 9 billion gross GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) during the festive season this year as against USD 7.4 billion last year - a growth of 23 per cent.

During the first week of the festive season, these platforms are expected to register 30 per cent year-on-year growth in gross GMV to USD 4.8 billion. Gross GMV refers to the total value of goods sold on the platform prior to subtracting cancellation or return.

The report highlighted that in terms of categories, fashion is expected to see a steady recovery this festive season - in line with greater outdoor mobility of consumers and steady rebound of fashion/office wear.