Bonanza for Kerala SMBs as annual Amazon sales fest records biggest opening ever

Kochi: E-commerce giant Amazon is upbeat about its Kerala market, with its flagship annual campaign—the Amazon Great Indian Festival (AGIF) 2024—receiving an encouraging response.

The company has revealed that the ongoing edition of AGIF has registered its biggest opening ever since its launch in 2014, with Kerala also contributing a significant share of sales and consumer turnout.

Nearly 11 crore customer visits were recorded, and over 8,000 sellers surpassed Rs 1 lakh in sales within the first two days of the event, the company said in a statement. The campaign, which usually lasts for a month, started on September 27.

"From Kerala, customers primarily purchased from top product categories such as smartphones, beauty products, apparel, everyday essentials and more. 65% of sellers who received an order were from cities such as Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, and Kannur, among many more," the company said.

The company did not reveal the specific number of consumers who registered orders from Kerala. Thousands of small and medium businesses (SMBs) from Kerala have clocked their biggest-ever single-day sales during the event.

"Customers in the state have shown tremendous enthusiasm for the event, with strong demand for smartphones, apparel, beauty products, and more. We're thrilled to see sellers from cities like Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram thriving during the sale.

''This demonstrates the growing importance of regional markets in India's e-commerce landscape and our ability to meet the diverse needs of customers across the country," Kishore Thota, director of India & Emerging Markets, Amazon, said during a media interaction in Kochi on Friday.

He said customers cumulatively saved Rs 240 crore on their shopping in the first 48 hours of the sale. Amazon.in created more than 110,000 seasonal job opportunities across its operations network to meet the heightened customer demand during the upcoming festive season, including thousands of seasonal jobs in Kerala, Thota said.

Amazon.in has made significant investments in Kerala over the years in creating a physical infrastructure and providing a regional language experience for customers. The company has close to 30,000 sellers from Kerala. It has three fulfilment centres with more than 34 lakh cubic feet of storage capacity and one sort centre with more than 1,70,000 sq. ft. of sorting area. It also has more than 78 Amazon-owned and partner delivery stations in the state.