The party is over, and Indians are slowly returning to the daily grind post-Diwali. BT takes a look at how online commerce has fared this season.
How did the marketplaces fare?
Redseer Consulting did a brief study on the sale titled, ‘The Great Indian Online Festive Sales Review’. The study makes some interesting observations of the ecommerce Diwali sales. The most popular items sold this season include mobiles, tablets and their accessories (50% of total sales). Clothes and fashion came a close second with 35% of the share of sales.
Anil Kumar, Redseer’s CEO notes,
“More than the GMV growth, the crucial development for the industry was that the growth came on the back of much lower marketing spends (compared to) last year, and the category mix also showed signs of moving away from mobiles-only dependency, both of which are very positive signs for the future of the industry.”
Redseer illustrates the major Diwali sales statistics in the following image:
The following graphic sums up the performance of the three market leaders in a simple yet convincing (albeit humorous) way:
The five days of sale in early October witnessed transactions worth $ 720 million carried out.
For the sellers
Most leading marketplaces had facilities for sellers including easy access to loans, training sessions etc. Flipkart gave out checklists to its sellers to help them minimise potential chaos. Amazon floated an incentive program for the sellers who spend the most on discounts, promotions and advertising. It also launched ‘seller cafes’ or help centres where sellers will get support on signing up, cataloguing and dealing with issues.
Some noteworthy trends
This season witnessed a few interesting trends:
- Snapdeal noted that footwear, home improvement items, dry fruits and lamps (typical Diwali shopping) dominated the sale.
- Tier 2 and 3 cities participated actively in the shopping. Amazon saw 70% of its new orders from smaller cities. Shopclues saw a 50% increase in the orders from non-metro cities and towns. Snapdeal said that 60% of its orders were from tier 2 and 3 cities.
Cities from Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, and Jammu Kashmir shopped significantly online, said a Redseer report.
- Mobile shopping is steadily going up. Snapdeal noted that more than 82% of its orders came from mobile.
- Exclusive partnerships were all the rage this season. Flipkart held exclusive launches of electronics and apparel brands. Amazon had exclusive tie-ups with LG, Videocon and Whirlpool. Snapdeal launched exclusive premium Nestle chocolates.
- Amazon had the edge over old pal Flipkart in the sale of smartphones. A study by Ugam, an analytics and research firm, noted that Amazon had tied up with 70% of the biggest smartphones brands in exclusive deals.
- More customers opted to pre-pay their purchases. Flipkart said that its COD orders were down to 60% from last year’s 75%. More than 50% of Snapdeal’s orders were paid in advance.
Criteo’s observations based on 2015 sales:
What do the experts say?
Mihit Kittur, CIO and co-founder of Ugam, feels that with the increased choices available to shoppers, data analysis will help in streamlining the etailers’ efforts.
“Big data analytics is a critical capability that can be leveraged to get a comprehensive view of both customers and competitors to make informed pricing, assortment and promotional decisions.”
Dushyant Sapre, commercial director at Criteo India predicts the growth of ecommerce in India,
“it is expected that online shoppers in India may reach 175 million by 2020.”
So that’s another year of ecommerce’s biggest sale just past us. Hopefully, etailers have taken some good lessons from this year and will improvise on the problem areas next year. If you need any help in spotting and fixing your problem areas, give us a shout. Browntape is India’s biggest ecommerce service provider, and you can reach us here.
