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When Flipkart’s Shopsy introduced its first grand shopping mela in September 2022, it was hoping to learn the tricks of the trade, right from offering the best deals to creating the right hook to reel in customers with limited budgets.

One year and two editions later, Shopsy has built a stronger foundation to offer customers the most ideal shopping platform for festive season needs, according to Kapil Thirani, Head of Shopsy.

Aimed at customers residing in Tier II and III towns and cities, Shopsy is set to host the 3rd rendition of the Grand Shopsy Mela starting September 11. The event will offer a range of festive season needs including apparel, accessories, beauty, and electronics to shoppers who are likely to have higher discretionary income around this time of the year. At present, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and West Bengal account for most of the demand, and the trend is likely to continue, according to Thirani.

“Our first attempt at the Grand Shopsy Mela last year was for testing the water to understand what shoppers are looking for and how we can make their experience better. The second edition put our lessons to test and it performed very well. We will continue the proposition going forward,” Thirani tells YourStory.

Bumper sales across 19,000 pincodes during the Rakhi festival in August helped boost momentum for the upcoming festive sales, Thirani said without disclosing numbers on the performance.

Shopsy held the Grand Shopsy Mela for the second time during the festival of Holi in March this year, which saw a spike in the sale of sarees, kurtis, makeup, and accessories. High frequency and low-ticket purchases like hair accessories are expected to be top-selling products in the upcoming season, Thirani predicts.

Shopsy said it will introduce 194 verticals specific to low-ticket items, which remain unacquainted to ecommerce owing to their low cost and high delivery.

Customers are generally willing to spend more during the festive season after months of saving, specially for gifting friends and family, Thirani says. Shopsy’s sale aims to offer a wide variety of options for value-conscious customers at prices starting from Rs 15. 

Thirani adds the Shopsy team has added several improvements to its app and underlying technology has helped widen both Flipkart’s and Shopsy’s user base.

Both apps allow users to switch to the other platform, which might have items suited to their pricing preferences, Thirani said.

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Flipkart’s Shopsy still seeking the right hook to reel in shoppers

Launched in 2021, Shopsy started out as a social commerce platform where resellers from smaller cities could order for their network of friends and family and earn a commission. It is now focused on driving direct purchases from consumers to grow the platform.

Shopsy (including Flipkart) has over 11 lakh sellers on its platform who are said to be listing their products for zero commission. Currently, Shopsy’s app has over 230 million downloads and has more than 150 million listed products. 

The platform served more than 16 million shoppers between January and March 2023.

“While Shopsy caters to the fence sitters and enables them to shop on the ecommerce platform, consumers who are infrequent shoppers also tend to visit Shopsy more often for their shopping needs given the availability of low ASP items on the platform. Therefore, Shopsy is able to serve the needs of both cohorts,” the company says.

(Lead image by Nihar Apte)