Safari sells more luggage on Amazon India than every other brand put together

Read this first

Every money figure here is a floor: what buyers paid on Amazon India for the listings we read. It is not a company's revenue. We read this on 3 October, in the week before Amazon's festive sale, which starts on 8 October. So these figures describe a normal month.

Every colour and size of a suitcase is its own listing on Amazon, and most listings show no sales figure. So this floor sits lower under the real number than our beauty shelves do. Do not set it beside them.

One brand takes more than half the money

Luggage on Amazon India sells at least ₹202.0 crore a year, about 60,700 pieces a month. Safari takes 51.7%, or ₹104.5 crore. Every other brand together takes 48.3%. VIP's two brands, Aristocrat and Skybags, take 23.6%.

The largest Indian D2C brand is Mokobara, at 4.1%. Indian D2C luggage sells at a median of ₹4,424, 1.9 times the legacy brands' ₹2,299.

What share of each company's sales this is

Our figure covers Amazon India only. To check it, we set it beside what each company reports for its whole business.

Safari sells about half online and VIP about a fifth. Samsonite does not disclose its online share. Mokobara sells first through its own site and stores.

The two Indian incumbents agree with each other. Our floor is about 10% of Safari's online sales and about 12% of VIP's. When two companies read at the same rate, the shelf is being read evenly.

Samsonite is not small in India. Its India sales are about the same as Safari's, yet on Amazon search it is a fraction of Safari. Most likely it sells mainly in its own stores, at airports and in department stores, or our general searches show it less. Either way, this shelf is Safari's channel, not the whole luggage market.

The same is true of D2C. Mokobara's revenue is 11% of Safari's. On Amazon it is 8% of Safari. D2C's share of the whole market is likely higher than its 8.4% here.

Which colours sell

Blue sells most, 28% of pieces, and across many brands. Green outsells black: 15% against 11%. Black is offered on 58% of listings and sells 25% below its share of the shelf. Red, white and orange are offered and barely sell.

Beige sells twice its share of listings, but that is one product. Safari is 75% of beige pieces sold, and its Pentagon Pro range in “Luxury Beige” alone is 53%. That is one successful product, not a national taste for beige.

Amazon shows a sales figure per colour, not per product. In 21 of the 23 styles where we read two or more colours, the colours carry different figures, so units by colour hold up.

Which sizes sell

Cabin bags are 41% of pieces sold. Sets of two or three are 24%, medium check-in 22% and large check-in 12%.

What we expected, and got wrong

We wrote down four predictions before we read the shelf. 2 of them were right. Luggage is a purchase people research, and we expected that to help the D2C brands. On Amazon it did not. Buyers chose the names they know, as they do on tea and baby skincare.

How we read it, and what it cannot tell you

Amazon India, five searches, three pages each: trolley bag, suitcase, cabin luggage, check in luggage, and luggage set of 3. We counted only Amazon's own search results, not the carousels of related products. Each colour swatch on a result links to a different listing, so counting every link would copy one product's sales onto all its colours. We opened the product page of every listing that shows a sales figure. A listing counts as luggage when Amazon files it under Suitcases & Trolley Bags or Luggage Sets.

What this cannot tell you: the size of the Indian luggage market, because most luggage sells off Amazon; a festive month, because we read the month before; revenue, because we see what buyers paid; and why any of it happens.

The full report, with every table and chart, is here: luggage on Amazon India (PDF). If you make or sell luggage, book a discovery call.