bengaluru amazon india is sharpening its moves to grab a larger share of the spoils in the coming festive season and steal a march over rival flipkart in the somewhat sluggish market for online retail in the country the seattleheadquartered company which is expected to outspend rivals is relying on a larger array of products and bigger network of merchants to boost sales in what it terms will be its biggest shopping season ever in india i dont think we have been in a stronger position in india in our lifecycle said amit agarwal managing director of amazon india referring to his companys track record since it began operations here in june 2013 he said offering the widest selection to consumers and competitive prices for both buyers and sellers backed by fast and reliable deliveries are the three areas of focus for the company on all those dimensions we have been leaders for a while which has converted into traffic he said he declined to specify when his company would launch its mega festival sale or how much it will spend for online retailers the period october to december is critical as it provides 3540 of the total annual sales this year the season is seen as even more critical as gross sales in the once booming industry are estimated to be slowing in the second quarter of 2016 the total value of goods sold on online marketplaces shrank by nearly a tenth dropping to 13 billion from 14 billion in the previous quarter in the same period last year sales had grown 21 to touch 115 billion from 95 billion according to research firm redseer consulting agarwal however refrained from commenting on what experts deem as slowing growth in online retail its very early days for online retail in india he maintained the momentum and growth we amazon are seeing there is no slowdown to be sure the vantage point for agarwal is very different in june founder jeff bezos said the indian arm would have access to 5 billion in investment this means that the capital available with amazon india is more than the total raised by two of its biggest rivals here market leader flipkart which has raised 23 billion and softbankbacked snapdeal which has pooled about 15 billion et reported earlier this week that amazon india will preempt rival flipkarts big billion day bbd event which starts on october 3 by launching its great festival sale on october 1 it will also outspend rivals on marketing and advertisement with a budget of rs 125130 crore sources told et such a strategy has worked well for amazon in the us when it took on local rivals online shoe seller zappos and quidsi initially amazon did not spend much on marketing and discounts as they were building warehouses and infrastructure to support their operations while flipkart and snapdeal were spending heavily said satish meena an analyst with forrester research now the local rivals need to spend as