30% spike expected in online sales during this festive season in India

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The Indian e-commerce space, which has been showing incipient signs of recovery, is hoping to further improve its showing in the oncoming festival season.

For this festival season --- typically from before the Dusshera time and running till New Year or oven Pongal in the Southern States --- the e-commerce platforms are expecting a 30% increase from their last year's figure in sales.

The surge in sales is based on the increase in online shopping ever since the social distancing norms came into place. A slew of new launches across diverse products is also seen as a positive cause.

Hope is further buoyed by the fact that two of the biggest online players in India, Amazon and Flipkart, recorded a combined sales in the range of Rs 5,600 crore -Rs 6,000 crore during their Prime Day and Big Savings Days sale events in August.

Smartphones and WFH devices, the cynosure

According to a report in the Economic Times, which quoted executives at online marketplaces, "new models of smartphones, work-from-home and study-from-home enablers are expected to drive sales, while apparel and fashion sales will still remain a little weak".

Home, appliance, sports, fitness and health are the other categories that look to make impressive recovery.

If the wedding season kicks in even apparel and fashion market would get a bump in sales.  

As we said, the festival season is a long, over-two-months window in India. Usually, Amazon has its Great Indian Festival sale and Flipkart holds its The Big Billion Day sale around this time. Last year, the two platforms, according to the Economic Times report, recorded about $3.5-3.7 billion in sales in the highest-selling six days, a rise of 33% over 2018. In the overall 2019 festive sale period, these platforms clocked $4.8 billion in sales.

Amazon and Flipkart have said that they would help their sellers make a comeback in what has been a tough season due to the economic lockdown.

Even though the number of Covid-19 cases in India are far from subsiding, the curbs are being lifted across States and mobility is expected to improve since September 1. This should help e-commerce companies to straighten out their logistical chain.

Also, e-commerce portals are expecting tier-2 cities to lead the charge for fresh demand.

In general, India’s e-commerce sector has been on a constant growth, the e-commerce order volume saw a growth of 20% while the GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) witnessed a surge of 23% with an average order size of Rs 1100.

Source: Economic Times



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