Flipkart says 450 sellers became lakhpatis during Independence Day sale

Bengaluru: Walmart-owned e-commerce major Flipkart said it saw significant traction during its 5-day Independence Day sale event, especially from sellers in Tier-2 cities. 

It said the number of transacting sellers on its platform doubled compared to last year. 8,000 new sellers participated in their first sale event, with 450 of them becoming 'lakhpatis' over these five days. 

Flipkart's sale happened from August 6-10. "Since the nationwide COVID-19-induced lockdown, Flipkart saw an increased interest from sellers to join the platform. Since then, the company has onboarded almost 8,000 sellers to its online marketplace, with more than 70 percent of them coming from smaller towns", a statement from Flipkart said. 

Flipkart said it saw maximum participation of sellers from New Delhi, followed by Surat, Jaipur, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Agra. Subsequently, cities such as Dharuhera, Datia, Harapanahalli, Cachar, Motihari, Purnia, Tezpur, Sibsagar, Dholpur, and Etawah became the new cities that saw the highest number of seller participation.

Key categories that led seller growth included - grooming, household items, books and media, food and nutrition, toys, makeup and fragrances, women ethnic contemporary wear, personal healthcare, home furnishing, and mobile protection.

Interestingly, this comes days after arch-rival Amazon said its Prime Day sale made 209 sellers crorepatis in 48 hours. 

Amazon said it saw the highest ever SMB participation with over 91,000 SMBs, artisans, weavers, and women entrepreneurs from over 5,900 pin codes receiving orders. "Of these, more than 62000 sellers were from non-metro and tier 2/3 cities across India. 31,000 SMB sellers witnessed their highest sales ever with over 4000 SMB sellers each registered sales of INR 10 lakhs or more, and 209 SMB sellers becoming crorepatis during the 48 hours", Amazon had said.