Exclusive: Flipkart clocks 606 million visits in first 48 hours of Big Billion Days; metro traffic up 23%

Flipkart’s flagship festive sale, the Big Billion Days (BBD) 2025, opened to a strong start with 606 million visits recorded in the first two days of the event. Unique visitors grew by 28% year-on-year during this period, and they expect it to continue into the third day. 

Pratik Shetty, vice president - Growth and Marketing at Flipkart, told Fortune India that nearly a third of these visits came from Gen Z customers, accounting for 201 million visits. “Gen Z visits are growing at twice the pace of the platform’s overall growth. What’s interesting is that this is not just from metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru, but also from cities like Surat, Visakhapatnam, and Indore,” he said.

Flipkart also reported a 23% year-on-year growth in metro customer visits, even as demand from non-metro cities picked up sharply. 

Beauty and personal care also recorded over 20–30% growth in units before the festive week and further accelerated during BBD. Much of this demand came from tier-2 and tier-3 towns. Fashion remained another key driver, though buying patterns diverged across consumer cohorts. “Millennials are powering growth in branded apparel and footwear, while Gen Z is driving unbranded fashion based on what’s trending, irrespective of labels,” Shetty explained.

The early surge reflects how reforms and consumer sentiment are shaping this year’s festive shopping cycle. While Shetty did not share specific sales figures, he highlighted that the momentum has been broad-based across categories and consumer groups.

“The growth we are seeing is not restricted to one geography or one demographic; it’s across metros, emerging towns, millennials, and Gen Z alike,” Shetty said.

GST reforms boost appliance demand

Shetty said the GST 2.0 reforms, rolled out ahead of the festive season, had a visible impact on consumer behaviour. While categories like fashion and beauty and personal care had already been growing before the reforms and “continued their momentum,” appliances saw a different trend.

From a category perspective, mobiles and electronics continued to draw strong demand, but appliances stood out as the fastest-growing segment in the opening days of the sale.

“In appliances, what we’ve actually seen is consumers not purchasing in the first half of September. A lot of them were coming to the platform, browsing products, visiting pages, but we didn't see that translate into convergence,” Shetty shared. “Once the sale started on the 22nd, and with GST reforms, consumers were waiting to see the actual price drop. That’s when we saw a sudden spurt in demand, making appliances the fastest growing category for us on the platform.”

Flipkart had earlier reported a 21% jump in overall user visits in the first 48 hours compared to last year, a trend that Shetty attributed in part to the recently implemented GST 2.0 reforms. In fact, the platform has created a dedicated GST 2.0 store on its app and website to make it easier for consumers to find products benefiting from revised rates.