E-tailers test covid waters with sales day
3 min read . Updated: 07 Aug 2020, 07:32 AM ISTFor the first time, Amazon India conducted its prime Day sale in India before hosting it in the US market
Thousands of employees remotely managed Amazon India’s Prime Day sale, the e-commerce major’s biggest annual sale event, which kicked off on Thursday, from their homes across multiple cities.
This is the first time Amazon has conducted the Prime Day sale in India before hosting it in the US market. The fourth edition of the Prime Day Sale in the country was conducted with a difference this year, following the covid-19 crisis, where Amazon India’s offices lay empty, and employees coordinated the mega event remotely keeping social distancing norms in mind. Only warehousing staff and supervisors have been working from Amazon’s fulfilment centers to ensure smooth operations on ground.
“We have made close to 100 changes in our on-ground operations to maintain social distancing in its buildings and ensure safe deliveries for customers. Amazon India has adjusted its practices within all its operations sites including fulfilment centers, sortation centers and delivery stations through new formats of communications, process changes, new training methods and several policy changes," said an Amazon spokesperson.
Amazon India employees have also transitioned to virtual meetings to stay updated as thousands of them work remotely through these challenging times.
Rival e-tailer Flipkart also started its Big Savings Days sale, as part of a series of sale events in the last two months, which will culminate with its Big Billion Day sale in October.
Walmart-owned Flipkart usually starts its sale offerings with the festival of Rakhi and conducts multiple sale events, with each of them having a different focus, as a build up to te Big Billion Day sale, said a company spokesperson.
Flipkart is also considering conducting its Big Billion Days sale with employees working remotely and is looking to step up its infrastructure to conduct its annual event remotely, keeping employee safety in mind.
Even for Flipkart-owned Myntra, which conducted its annual sale ‘End Of Reason Sale’ in June, that clocked sales of 10 million products in a span of four days, the event was managed by employees remotely.
During the four days the firm set up a dedicated central virtual war-room for tactical problem solving across all phases of the event, with more than a 1000 employees working remotely.
“We had created virtual war-rooms to ensure employees work seamlessly through the sale and there are detailed processes for managing incidents There was a Central Board Room for the leadership team to discuss and strategize during the course of the event, and opened various channels of communication for employees," said a Myntra spokesperson.
However, Myntra did open up its office premises for urgent issues, and had created safe hot seats and zones in its office, in case employees needed to come in.
This Prime Day 2020 sale, Amazon has also been relying on 300 new product launches from several electronic and direct-to-consumer brands to lure customers.
With offline sales taking a major hit, Flipkart has also started reaching out and partnering with offline brands, to introduce their newest offerings on its platform, in a bid to prepare for its annual sale, according to company sources.
“After the covid-19 induced lockdown, large e-commerce players are conducting the sale season to bring back the brand recall for customers and repositioning themselves in this new reality. Further, e-commerce firms were working on entering and developing different categories pre-covid, the process of which has just accelerated by external forces and are being launched this sale season," said Ankur Bisen, senior vice president, retail and consumer at Technopak, a management consultancy.
According to Bisen, categories like kitchen appliances, storage spaces, and electronic accessories are becoming key essentials for customers, as they continue to work-from-home, making them a big focus for e-commerce firms, which otherwise wasn’t in their radar.
With consumer spending sentiment at an all-time low, customers will look to trade down their purchases and even look at refurbished options, as means to save cost.
“Today’s customer is smart and extremely price sensitive. Hence, sales won’t be able to induce artificial demand, especially when customers don’t feel the need to buy high-ticket items," added Bisen.
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