Festive buying fervour spells bonanza time for e-commerce players

This festive season has turned into a shopping bonanza for buyers on e-commerce platforms as the players embarked on a plethora of deals and discounts. Amazon, Flipkart, Shopclues, Snapdeal, Myntra... buyers are spoilt for choice this festive season, and in turn, the e-commerce players have been seeing their sales and revenues jump by leaps and bounds.

Flipkart’s Big Billion Days

Big Billion Days on Flipkart top place between October 2 and 6. According to the e-commerce player, the sales crossed the internal targets by 40 per cent. Sales on October 3 on Flipkart crossed Rs 1,400 crore – the highest in history. Flipkart has also claimed that its sales on October 3 alone crossed single day sales of organised retail in India.

Total units - Flipkart + Myntra + Jabong totalled 15.5 million. 99 per cent of all units were above Rs 200 selling price, while 95 per cent were above Rs 300 selling price. The shopping cart of one lakh customers exceeded Rs 50,000.

Total units sold included only physical goods and did not include virtual membership and low cost items like churan, hing, candy, detergent bar and eggs. The number of smartphones sold were 2.5 million, in fact, more smartphones were sold in the five days of the sale period than the entire sales of mobile phones in India in a week, as claimed by Flipkart.

LED televisions sold on Flipkart in five days exceeded the entire sales of  LED TVs by organised retail in 45 days. Meanwhile, three out of every four apparel sold online were sold on the Flipkart + Myntra + Jabong platforms.

Commenting on the festive season sale, Binny Bansal, CEO, Flipkart, said, “We have had a flawless Big Billion Days this year. Starting from marketing, merchandising to supply chain and technology, all teams came together to deliver and the results have been stunning. Some of the key landmarks of the sale were when we made a history in the Indian e-commerce by crossing Rs 1,400 crore in a day. Big Billion Days is nothing without the billion people of the country. We dream of making all wishes affordable, and these are only initial steps in that direction.” 

Snapdeal’s Unbox Diwali Sale

Snapdeal has claimed that it sold more than 11 million units during its Unbox Diwali Sale held from October 2 to 6. Fashion, home (general merchandise) and electronics were the highest selling categories by volume in that order. More than a million concurrent users logged on to Snapdeal at peak time.

Two significant changes in user behaviour were also observed on Snapdeal this Diwali versus the last Diwali. There was an increase of 40 per cent in the number of women shoppers purchasing online on Snapdeal. The other significant trend was growth in prepaid orders driven by attractive offers on bank cards and preference for SD Gold. Over 50 per cent of orders were prepaid during the Diwali sale.

Speaking about Snapdeal’s success during the Diwali Sale, Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder and CEO, Snapdeal, said, “The Unbox Diwali Sale has been a great success for us on all metrics. Our customers have given us very positive reviews on the quality of service that we offered with respect to our vast selection and speed of delivery. Hundreds of thousands of orders were delivered in 24 hours despite the massive surge in orders. We saw a 4 times increase of new users who shopped at Snapdeal as compared to last Diwali. I would like to congratulate the entire Snapdeal family including our team, sellers, brand partners and logistics partners who have worked day and night towards this grand success.”

Earlier, in the run up to Diwali, Snapdeal had rolled out a Rs 200-crore marketing campaign. The campaign has been launched on TV, YouTube, print, digital and social media and is also seen outdoors on billboards and external installations. It is designed to drive traffic and increase consumer awareness about the exciting festive season offers that are being hosted by brand partners and lakhs of sellers on Snapdeal.

ShopClues Diwali Sale

ShopClues’ 10-day promotional sale, which is culminating today (October 10, 2016), has been enabling consumers to bask in the typical Indian market-like experience and explore the extensive range of well-curated products and merchandise available on the e-commerce platform across popular categories like Consumer Electronics, Home & Kitchen and Ethnic Fashion. The e-tailer is expecting growth of about 150 per cent-200 per cent, from this sale period.

Tapping into the mass consumer-driven sales, ShopClues has launched its promotional sale by precisely gauging Indian consumer demands in semi-urban areas. Mass consumers tend to buy electronic goods, ethnic fashion, and home & kitchen products after a significant amount of research to strike the best available deals in the market.

Since the start of its sales on October 1, ShopClues has witnessed 260 per cet order growth from Tier 2 and Tier 3 SMEs, compared to last Diwali. Adding to the joy of its festive sales the Capital Wings adoption by ShopClues merchants have grown by 700 per cent for the sale period.

ShopClues has also partnered with CashCare Technology, a Mumbai-based fintech company, for its Zero Cost EMI scheme that comes without any interest and processing fee.

Throwing more light on the marketing strategies for the festive season, Nitin Agarwal, AVP – Marketing, ShopClues, said, “For our important and sharp consumers, we have fine-tuned the categories. Following our rsearch we found out that a lot of people are shopping for home and kitchen as well as ethnic fashion on e-commerce platforms. So we have increased our offerings in these categories and are also offering exclusive products at very exciting price points. Since a lot of people like to avail of the EMI or loan facility, we are offering a Zero Cost EMI scheme.”

He further said, “Since this a season of sales and offers by different e-commerce players, people tend to switch to different platforms very easily, wherever they get the right product at the right price. Hence, to engage the online shoppers, we are banking on digital very heavily, 30-40 per cent of our spends are on digital this time. “We have come out with 10 films on digital to make sure that our offers reach out to the consumers. We are doing very sharp targeting with relevant offers.”

Though he refused to divulge the spends figure on the marketing activities, he said that compared to last year, the spends had grown by about 20 per cent.

The e-tailer is offering an assortment of 3 lakh+ products under 499 under its home and kitchen category. Under its fashion category, Shopclues is offering 10 lakh+ products with the starting price of 99. It is also offering up to 80 per cent discount under general utilities category with the products ranging from car accessories, travel and luggage, gifting, stationary to beauty products.