Flipkart emerged as the winner in the recent festive sales where the Walmart-owned e-commerce player battled against Amazon in Indian market.
Among all leading retailers, Flipkart and Amazon contributed to 90% of sales between mid-October to November. Of this share, 66% of sales came from Flipkart Group, according to consulting firm Redseer’s new report. The festive season for this year saw 88% customer growth from last year. This year’s sales were driven primarily by 40 million shoppers who shopped online from Tier 2+ cities.
Festive sales this year crossed gross sales of $8.3 billion for brands and sellers, up by around 65% year-on-year. Last year, online sales clocked $5 billion in GMV during festive season. “This has been much more than the forecasted performance,” says Mrigank Gutgutia, Director at Consulting firm RedSeer.
He adds, “The overall growth story has been very bullish this festive season. We had forecasted $7 billion of sales but the actual figures surpassed our expectations, showing how comfortable consumers have become with shopping online even in this pandemic hit year.”
“One clear lesson from this festive season is that e-commerce has become more mainstream than ever. And it has proven that with the right assortment at the right prices which is delivered quickly in the safety of customers’ homes, the value proposition of e-commerce is very powerful. Thus it is imperative for brands and sellers to shift their focus to online quickly and enable a seamless online experience for the customer in order to thrive in a post COVID world,” said Gutgutia.
Factors like high pre-sale awareness and anticipation driven by an impactful campaign, wide selection across the categories, seamless supply chain planning enabled minimal product stock-outs along with multiple affordability constructs helped Flipkart and Amazon to drive growth this festive season.
In terms of category, while mobiles dominate the online sales, other categories like home decor and furniture took over fashion in sales figures due to increase in time being spent at home by people across the country. Fashion has decreased from last year, owing to COVID-19 which has placed restrictions on going out and also limited gathering in weddings and other festive celebrations.
Also, the GMV per customer dropped to Rs 6,600 from Rs 7,450 in last festive season showing the increasing trend of consumer looking for value-driven brands. Buyers preferred affordable price ranges this year for almost all product categories, instead of cheap/expensive, said the report.
