What Flipkart and Amazon are doing to outsmart each other this Diwali

As the festive season begins, e-commerce players are out to grab customers. Amazon, which recently launched its prime service in India, is likely to spend Rs 250 crore on marketing its annual sale.

That is a big jump in ad-spend by any single, global e-commerce company in India. It spent above Rs 150 crore in the last calendar, say market reports. As part of its various marketing strategies, Amazon has signed up with Karan Johar's production company, Dharma Productions to bring the latest Bollywood movies to its prime time customers.

Also prime is the premium service it is building in India to attract more customers to take on local rival Flipkart.

In the US, Amazon has been able to woo nearly half of all households to subscribe to Amazon prime, which offers exclusive movies and shows, and quick delivery service at no additional cost and early access to deals.

Amazon, the runner-up in India's e-commerce space, hosts its annual five-day festive sale The Great Indian Festival, a day ahead of rivals Flipkart and Snapdeal as it looks to outdo competition with larger bigger discounts, faster delivery times and sweeter deals.

"The marathon 120 hours of the event mark our continuing commitment to work closely with our partners and together bring the biggest sale yet for our customers, with the best ever shopping experience powered by Prime," said Amit Agarwal, country head of Amazon India.  Meanwhile, rival Flipkart swings Ekart - its business arm around quickly to boost its logistics business. The co-founder of Flipkart - Binny Bansal - is leveraging the firm's investments in warehouse and digital maps to optimise delivery of merchandise to smaller towns.

Ekart supports rivals such as Paytm, Shopclues and offline players like Madura Garments and Apollo Hospitals. The venture is committed to spending $2.5 billion globally on warehousing and logistics over the next few years - and worked for a while with Jabong before acquiring it. It has witnessed a lot of enquiries from companies for the use of its logistic force.

Flipkart's Big Billion Day sale has already caught the eyes of the customers, and offers promising deals to cost-conscious consumers, as it looks at the five-day event to fend off competition from rival Amazon.

A host of concessions like no-cost EMI and product exchange is up for the grabs. Customers will be able to get their hands on quality products at a much smaller budget across categories with some of the best deals.

Amazon, on the other hand, is looking out for partnerships with film and television producers as also with film artists for exclusive content on their platforms.The e-commerce industry is aiming at a four-fold increase in daily orders during festive sales that begin early October.

While Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon rake in most of the orders, smaller players too see their sales sparked during Diwali time and a small portion of market earnings slipping through the cracks to them.

The e-commerce companies are becoming big spenders on media around the festive season of Diwali in India between October and December every year. It is a Diwali Dhamaka for them in India.

Flipkart has made investments in startups like, Black Buck, Qikpod, Mapmy India - all of which offer different and better small-town deliveries than Amazon and better location data than even Google.

Amazon has got Tamagne Ghosh, the ex-head of Walt Disney Studios, to champion the exclusive Amazon India originals soon, as observed from his Linked-in updates. Amazon has 23 fulfillment centers and the largest storage space among e-commerce firms, but the company uses its logistics to carry out orders booked only on its flagship outlets unlike some of the other players.

Online marketers offer generous incentives to e-commerce delivery boys to woo customers. Going by the current estimates, close to 30,000 to 35000, delivery staff have been hired across categories up to last-mile delivery like delivery boys, pickers and packers, warehouse executives et al.

Last-mile services and team lease services are incentivised in a month-long sale period during October-November when perks up to Rs 1,500 can be earned easily by each staff.

Flipkart is offering additional Rs 5 per package for business partners delivering more than 50 packages per day and Rs 200 for attendance on all key sale days. The delivery personnel get almost a 10 per cent bonus during Diwali season.

Looking to shore up online presence, all e-commerce companies are outsmarting each other during the run-up to Diwali to grab the most customers and sales to climb up to the hotspots of online business.