Marketplaces and their Diwali sales

This Diwali was a season of firsts for many things – never seen before discounts and offers, goof-ups (Flipkart’s Big Billion Day), surge in sales (like Snapdeal), war of the ecommerce biggies in the advertising space, logistics delays and many happy as well as disgruntled customers.

Despite the unforeseen backlashes, the ecommerce industry in general seems to be in a happier place after the Diwali season. The achievements seem to have shadowed over the negatives, paving the way for a stronger foothold of etailers on the consumers.

How did the marketplaces fare individually during the season? Have a look at some stats and figures indicating the same (source: NextBigWhat).

Shopclues

ShopClues recorded their highest-ever traffic and sales in this festive season of Diwali, Navratri and Dhanteras. Here are some stats from ShopClues:

• The website witnessed over 95,000 peak orders in a day and 500% growth in Gross Merchandise Volume.

• Highest number of purchases was made in the pre-Diwali week

• Local home-appliance brands, unbranded fashion wear, made-in-India products were exceptionally popular with ShopClues shoppers.

• Gold and Silver-plated items were most popular in the gifting category.

• In the travel category, unbranded products had an 80% share.

• Feature phones (Micromax, Intex, Karbonn, etc) showed three times higher sales than smartphones

• The small appliances category was clearly led by homegrown brands, with roti-makers stealing the show this Diwali season.

• Apparel, home décor, kitchenware among top-sellers

• Spiritual category had accelerated growth of 144%

• Over 70% of the orders came from tier II and III cities

• Mobile devices accounted for almost 45% of the total orders

• ShopClues.com also witnessed higher adoption of prepaid payment options over Cash-on-Delivery.

• There was an increase in women shoppers this year with the male: female ratio being up at 60:40.

Amazon

On September 21st, Amazon India kicked-off the 30 day Online Shopping Dhamaka ahead of the peak festival season and here are some interesting stats that Amazon has shared:

• Amazon.in’s seller club that has INR 10 crore+ monthly sales grew by 5X during the 30-day period of the Online Shopping Dhamaka.

• 50% traffic through mobile through the month.

• Over 50% orders from non-metros; serviced over 950+ cities across 15,500 + pin code.

• Top 5 Cities (Non-Metro) – Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Bhubaneshwar.

• Top 5 Categories: Consumer Electronics (including PC), Books, Home (& Kitchen), Beauty, Shoes.

• The growth in sales for books was over 3x during this period.

• Most Popular products- Micromax phones, Flash drives, Coke Zero, iPhones and Philips shavers.

Flipkart

Flipkart crossed $100mn in GMV in just one day. The company has shared some data points:

• 1 million mobile app downloads.

• Sold over 2 million items [60 items per second].

• Sold one TV very single second!

• Flipkart also sold over 5 lakh units in mobiles and another 5 lakh in fashion.

• The company received orders from 6000 pin codes, and over 1000 Indian cities.

How can you capitalize on the growing popularity of online shopping?

Although traditional brands claim to have their dedicated clientele shopping from their physical stores, it is a fact that more and more consumers are turning to online retail for their shopping needs. And it’s not just because of the discounts. Consumers have access to multiple options at their fingertips.

Also, increased penetration of smartphones in the consumer market, coupled with the popularity of online shopping in tier 2 and 3 cities now, has sparked the growth of ecommerce.

So are you thinking of getting deeper into the ecommerce space by diversifying and increasing your product portfolio?