Flipkart & Amazon lead the chart; orders from Tier II cities roar this festive season

As the much awaited festive season has started, Indian online marketplaces, by all means, have rolled out their festive sales campaigns giving out bountiful offers to lure more and more consumers. As per a recent study conducted by the cashback and coupons site CashKaro.com, India’s leading eCommerce unicorn brands such as Amazon.in, Snapdeal, Flipkart and Shopclues are leading the chart with amazing customer response after the first day of their pre-Diwali sales.

Looking at the shopping trends on Day 1, it has been observed that there is a stiff competition between Amazon.in and Flipkart closely followed by Snapdeal and then Shopclues in terms of the rise in their Gross Merchandise Value (GMV). As per Assocham it was rightly predicted that festive season will push up online sales by 25 per cent to Rs 25,000 cr this year from Rs 20,000 cr last year.

Commenting on the festive trends, Swati & Rohan Bhargava, Founders, CashKaro.com said, “The scale of online shopping in India has grown substantially with the increase in internet ready devices, awareness about e-commerce, better user experience enabled by improved infrastructure in terms of logistics and broadband. All top retailers have unveiled a bevy of offers to entice shoppers to garner a significant portion of their total annual sales during this festive season that will last for most of October. 

Top Selling Verticals
Adding to the festivity this year, product categories such as Mobiles & Electronics have nabbed over 50 per cent of registered transactions followed by Fashion and Lifestyle with around 20 per cent and Small and Large Appliances with around 9 per cent transactions. Appliances category has seen among the best discount this year.

Even categories such as Gift Cards has gain enormous popularity registering a 5X hike in orders during this festive season as compared to normal days of the year. With the growing trust in online shopping, this festive season has also witness a splurge in sale of large ticket items such as TVs. Deals and discounts in this section have been huge.

Consumables as a category has also seen around 6 per cent hike in registered transactions betting on the quick delivery features launched by various online marketplaces.

Average Order Value
The Average Order Value through CashKaro platform has been 2X this festive season vs. rest of the year. The reason for this increase was largely due to higher discounts offered by partner sites and increased spending by customers online.

Transactions during festive season vs. rest of the year
There has been a 6X increase in number of transactions via CashKaro.com during the festive period as compared to the rest of the year. This is largely due to the wide array of discounts and promotions being offered to bring new shoppers online and drive repeat purchases.

Exclusive privileges and financial benefits being offered by portals like Flipkart, Amazon.in, Snapdeal & ShopClues backed by additional discounts through strategic partnerships with various banks like HDFC, SBI, ICICI Bank, Standard Chartered, American Express etc. have also played a pivotal role in increasing sales & order value this festive season.

Cities that are seeing greater interest during Diwali
The top 5 Metros (Delhi /NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata) have continued to dominate along with upcoming metro cities such as Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh. This year, tier II and III cities such as, Bhopal, Pimpri Chinchwad, Ernakulam, Bhubaneswar, those in Telangana region etc. have registered an increased traffic as against last year.

Preferred Device to shop from: Mobile v/s Desktop
Mobile – 40 per cent
Desktop – 60 per cent

Unlike last year, equal promotion on both Desktop and App platforms are seen as retailers have realised that both mediums have their own merits and cannot be ignored.