The online marketplaces in India did grow by a rather impressive 26 percent year-over-year in terms of festive sales, amounting to $6.5 billion (55,000 crore) in one week. And of these sales, mobiles and electronics, appliances, and essentials accounted for 75% of the total sales.
E-commerce targets $12 billion in GVM this season
Datum Intelligence reported that sales in the week starting September 26 accounted for 55% of the expected ecommerce sales for this festive season. On September 19, ET noted that e-commerce businesses and brands are expected to reach $12 billion in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) this festive season, a 23% increase from last year’s $9.7 billion.
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In e-commerce, GMV stands for total sales on an online marketplace. According to industry insiders, many online shoppers – from small towns and cities – are buying pricier things, with many of them opting for EMI payments. Some brands were concerned about supply issues, as the demand went above and beyond what they had expected.
Interestingly, Amazon and Flipkart Plus Prime subscribers got their pre-sale from the 26th of September as Flipkart, owned by Walmart, and Amazon India launched their annual festival sale, Big Billion Days and Great Indian Festival, on the 27th of September.
Furthermore, Meesho, backed by SoftBank, started its Mega Blockbuster Sale on the same day and saw a 40% increase in orders compared to last year. This growth was driven by strong demand from tier-II cities, with nearly 45% of shoppers coming from tier IV and beyond.
While talking to ET, Meesho co-founder and chief executive Vidit Aatrey said, “Our first week was much better than the plan, which means the demand was front-loaded, indicating that many people planned their purchases because they wanted to make sure everything arrived well in advance for the festivals.” He further said, “I think it’s just a very healthy set of demands across the country.”
Meanwhile, Flipkart stated that they’re focusing on faster deliveries nationwide and expanding same-day and next-day services. “While major metro cities such as New Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru continue to lead, we are also witnessing strong demand from customers across tier-II+ regions such as Medinipur, Hisar, Berhampore, Bankura, and Agartala to name a few,” said a company executive about their Big Billion Days programme.
E-commerce festive sale reaches $6-6.5 billion in first week
Notably, in recent years, festive sales have started earlier, before Navratri. Despite worries that people might not buy during the 16-day ‘Shradh’ period (September 17 to October 2 this year), brands and marketplaces have been surprised by strong demand during this time.
According to an adviser at Datum Intelligence, Satish Meena, around INR 50,000-55,000 crore ($6-6.5 billion) worth of goods were sold in the first week of the e-commerce festive sale. “The start was very fast… However, in the last day or so, we saw things slowing down,” he noted. “It’s typically like this; almost 55-60% spending happens in the first period (and) then the focus moves towards the lower average selling price (ASP) category. There will be one more wave between Dussehra and Diwali,” he concluded.
Following the growth in sales this festive season, Ranjit Babu, director of consumer electronics at Amazon India, pointed out that there has been strong customer demand for consumer electronics. The premium segment (priced above INR 30,000) witnessed the highest year-on-year growth, standing at 30%.
