E-groceries, fresh-food get festival season boost from tier-2 & 3 cities

The fresh-food category, witnessed a surge in demand, especially from tier-2 and -3 cities

Electronics, apparel and jewellery are the obvious buys in a festival season. However, the fast growing fresh-food category witnessed a surge in demand, especially from Tier-2 and -3 cities, during the ongong e-commerce festival sales.
 

Amazon India's online grocery segment, Amazon Fresh, witnessed this trend. The segment saw grocery being one of its fastest-growing categories. According to the company, more than 50 per cent of new Amazon Fresh customers have come from tier 2, tier 3, and smaller towns in the past two years.

The e-commerce giant in November last year announced that it had completed the integration of its grocery stores Fresh and Pantry into a single unified store called Amazon Fresh.

"During the first 36 hours of the ongoing Amazon Great Indian festival sale, Amazon Fresh saw over 2.5x growth over an average business day for daily essentials, such as oil, ghee, aata, and dal, among others," said Srikant Sree Ram, Director, Amazon Fresh.

"The initial hours of the shopping event saw customers on Amazon Fresh shopping for cooking essentials, snacks and desserts, fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and bakery items, coupled with cashback offers, Buy More Save More, and Supersaver offers," he added.

The firm has now expanded its full basket grocery selection -- fruits, vegetables, frozen and chilled products, beauty, baby and personal care, and other grocery needs -- to several new cities like Chandigarh, Kochi, and Thiruvananthapuram, among others.

Flipkart Grocery also saw a 2.3x increase in new customers.

"The number of cities shopping for groceries doubled to almost 1,700 during this Big Billion Days. Nearly 70 per cent of the grocery demand was recorded from tier-2, and -3 cities, including Guwahati, Indore, Lucknow, Nagpur, Patna and Vijayawada," Flipkart spokesperson said.

The e-commerce platform recorded over 1 billion customer visits between September 23 and 30.

To reach out to tier-2 and beyond, the company shared over 150 million personalised and curated WhatsApp messages with Flipkart shoppers. 

"Additionally, 10 million personalised video messages in Hindi and English were sent, addressing users by their name and sharing a sneak peek into the best of offers on Fashion & Lifestyle products," the company said.

A quick commerce player, Zepto, also recorded a rise in grocery demand from new and existing customers. The company was founded in 2021 by two Stanford University dropouts.

"The festive season has always been a catalyst for growth across categories," the company said.

"While there is an increase in sales across categories, it is particularly higher for products specific to the festival period like staples (such as sabu dana, singhara atta), oils & ghee, dry fruits, fresh fruits, etc. Our marketing efforts have also been strategically planned in line with the festival period- for instance, we highlight these categories through curated assortments on the app," Zepto added.