Diwali sales: A brisk start that ran out of steam

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Editor's note: The festive season is over. And so are the October-November sales. So no more full-page ads in your daily paper, listing out a whole array of products at rock-bottom prices. That phone you’ve been eyeing or those noise-cancelling headphones—all at prices a little less daunting. Year after year, this sale season plays out with claims and counterclaims flying thick and fast about the number of customers, sellers and shipments, and ever more dizzying sales figures. This year too, Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon’s Indian arm continued to duke it out in what was virtually a two-horse race online. That apart, by all accounts, the Diwali sales were very different this time.  While the first wave or week of sales comfortably broke records, aided by demand tailwinds, as we noted earlier, those died down just as quickly. As we wrote last year, typically just over half of the month-long Diwali sales is accounted for by the first wave, with the rest split equally between the next two.  This year, the first wave contributed as much as 60% of sales. What it means …