E-commerce platforms in India clocked a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) worth ₹47,000 crore rupees in the first week of the online festive sales. As per data from consulting firm Redseer, the first week of sales that ended around October 15 represents a growth of around 19 percent over the first week of last year’s festive season sale.

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Redseer said that as per its estimates, the Flipkart Group, which includes Flipkart, Myntra, and Shopsy, led the race with a market share of reach approximately 63% in GMV terms, followed by Amazon.

In terms of volume too, the Flipkart Group led the sale, followed by Meesho at 25% of the total orders, up from 21% in Week 1 of the 2022 Festive Season Sale. Interestingly, Amazon called the numbers ‘speculative which lacks transparency’ last year when Redseer made similar claims that the Flipkart Group followed by Meesho dominated the sales.

In terms of categories, Redseer says high Average Selling Price (ASP) items such as mobiles, electronics, and large appliances emerged as the largest contributor to the sales during Week 1, driving nearly 67% of the total sales with premiumisation emerging as a key theme in these categories. Further, as per Redseer’s survey, nearly 30% of the consumers who shopped high ASP categories in Week 1, utilised easily accessible financing options while making these purchases.

Consumers over-indexed purchases towards essential upgrades, Redseer added, given that right out of the nine days of the sale period this year were in the ‘shradh’ period, compared to four out of the nine days in 2022.

“This led consumers to over-index purchases towards “essential upgrades” in this festive season, and to prioritise buying or upgrading high ASP categories such as mobiles, electronics & large appliances, which typically have time-bound deals with easy financing options,” it added in its report.

Trends suggest that low ASP categories like fashion, BPC, and home, will continue to grow in the remaining festive season.

“Two India’s clearly emerged in Week 1 of this Festive Season: One, that is holding on to spending to buy premium products at the right prices and one that is shopping more frequently but spending on value for money products. This ties in with our overall consumption thesis, that while Indian consumers are holding back discretionary spends, they are willing to spend it if they get the desired value or deals,” Abhishek Tandon, Engagement Manager, Redseer, said in a statement.

For the entire sale season, Redseer has estimated a gross merchandise value of around ₹90,000 crore, a growth of 18-20% over last year's festive month sales. Last year, between September 22 to October 23, the total GMV across ecommerce platforms stood at nearly ₹76,000 crore.

Flipkart, which concluded its Big Billion Days sale earlier this week, said it recorded 1.4 billion customer visits over early access and seven days of the shopping festival. Flipkart’s Kirana partners delivered over 4 million packages in the first four days of TBBD’23. Seller success reached new heights on India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace with two times more crorepati seller growth over TBBD 2022, it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Meesho said it saw 1.6 crore new app installs during its Mega Blockbuster Sale, which was live from October 6 to October 15, 2023. “With 120 crore customer visits, categories such as Home & Kitchen, Fashion as well as Beauty & Personal Care garnered more than 72 orders per second,” it said in a statement.

Amazon’s Great Indian Festival is yet to conclude.

Also Read:Fewer people in smaller cities order food online but beauty, groceries see strong shoppers’ base: Jefferies

(Edited by : Sangam Singh)

First Published:Oct 20, 2023 8:24 PM IST