BigBillionDay is it! Watch out for Amazon’s ‘Great Indian festive Sale’

When two major e-tailers like Amazon and Flipkart go on war, they don’t leave any stone unturned to outdo the other. While we have heard a lot about what Flipkart has done to make this years’ Big Billion sale a huge success, today we got some interesting news from Amazon’s stable too. The e-tailer has tripled its warehousing capacity to 5 million cubic feet and lined-up over 1 million products for next-day delivery.

Amazon India head Amit Agarwal says they want customers to have a gala time this year. He says, "It would be great deals for customers, ensuring that sellers have a blockbuster time, ensuring that we provide a great experience — we believe that this will be the greatest sale India has ever seen."

To magnetise customers through its mobile application, Amazon will also offer one kilogram of gold to the daily winners during sale days. Agrawal refused to divulge details about the quantum of deals, offers and discounts that will be available during sale days etc.

All that he shared was this, "Thousands of deals will be available every hour during the five-day mega sale. We believe that millions of new customers are going to come. Based on our experience from the last two sales, more than 60% of our customers come from Tier II and Tier III cities."

While explaining its planning and strategy for the mega sale, Amazon said that it has been enrolling a number of vendors from past several months. "More than 25,000 sellers queued up in the last two months to participate in this," said Agarwal.

To build up its seller-base, Amazon offered Chai Carts – free tea and coffee painted with company logo – to the business owners while telling them the advantages of selling online. Around two dozen Chai Carts have travelled over 31,000 kilometres in 21 cities by now.

"It is our version of Chai Pe Charcha," Agarwal said, referring to Narendra Modi's discussions with people over tea as part of the BJP's audience-building measures in last year's election.

Seattle-based Amazon said it has tied up with about 2,000 small traders such as mom-and-pop stores, bakeries, travel agencies and pharmacists in 50 cities as pick-up points for products and has signed up non-governmental organisations, among others, as last-mile delivery partners.