Smartphones worth Rs 68 cr sold every hour on e-comm platforms: Redseer

The first week of online festive sales, where various e-commerce firms participated, saw 23 per cent year-over-year sales growth in 2021. This means goods worth $4.6 billion (Rs 32,000 crore) have been sold online from brands and sellers during the festive sales, according to the latest report released by homegrown firm RedSeer Consulting.

RedSeer claimed that it has been seen that Flipkart Group emerged as the leader during the festive sales with an impressive 64 per cent market share.

Earlier, RedSeer Consulting had forecasted a sale of $4.8 billion in the first week of the festive sale. Further, the overall online shopper base grew by about 20 per cent compared to last year with Tier II contributing to about 61 per cent of all shoppers. Also, the overall GMV (gross merchandise value) per shopper has grown by 1.04X –indicating an inherent aspiration in the shopper.

“The festive season this year has been one that is driven by a larger theme of affordability,” said Ujjwal Chaudhry, associate partner at RedSeer Consulting. “Constructs were built carefully by the platforms through BNPL (buy now pay later) schemes and bank tie-ups as well as seller driven discounts to serve up the most competitive prices of top leading brands and serve the aspiring customer.”

E-commerce firms Amazon and Flipkart recently said the early trends of their festive sales event reflected increased participation from tier 2 and 3 cities. Amazon’s month-long Great Indian Festival 2021 and Flipkart’s The Big Billion Days started early this month.

The festive sales this year proved that brands and sellers selling online have reason to be bullish about the future of sales online – with increased adoption in Tier-2+ cities and newer customers coming online for the first time, according to RedSeer report.

After a poor showing during last year’s festive, customer demand for fashion was back this year with affordable models and new platforms targeting Tier-2 users. However, the demand for other categories like home furnishings, decor and furnishings have been subdued during the festive season this year.

On the categories front, mobiles and appliances remained strong this year driven by new launches and smart upgrade plans of brands. About Rs 68 crore worth of mobiles were purchased every hour during the festive sale across platforms during the festive sales.

Tier-2 population continue to show up during festive sales on the different platforms largely enabled by various affordability schemes Also, e-commerce platforms were able to save an average of 5 hours on delivery timelines to customers with better warehouse planning and streamlined supply chain.

RedSeer had earlier said that the platforms will clock over $9 billion gross merchandise value (GMV) during the festive season which is a growth of 23 per cent. The report estimates that over 75 per cent customers are planning to buy equivalent to or more than last year across categories like mobiles, large appliances, beauty and fashion.