Mobile phones may still be the go-to product for millennials during the ongoing online festive season sales but consumer electronics and fashion are fast catching up. Driven by a wide selection and lucrative deals, the two categories are likely to see heavy demand from ‘Bharat’ (tier II cities and beyond), boosting their share in the overall GMV sales, according to estimates by market research firm RedSeer Consulting.
Mobile phones are expected to rake in $1.8 billion worth of sales in the ongoing festive season sale period, while other electronics are likely to notch up $0.9 billion. Fashion is estimated to see sales worth $0.55 billion, the firm said in a recent note.
While new launches and higher value proposition will help mobiles as a category to maintain its lead in the overall GMV —estimated to net 49% of the pie, consumer electronics is expected to contribute 26% to GMV sales this year — about 75% growth year on year. About 15% of GMV sales is likely to come from fashion, registering category growth of about 85% on year, calculations by RedSeer analysts showed.
Flipkart and Amazon, which jointly cover 80% of the domestic e-commerce market, have launched their six-day festive sales from September 29, taking the battle to acquire new consumers head on. A costly warfare — Flipkart India received Rs 1,616.12 crore in fresh capital from its Singapore-parent Flipkart Private Ltd while Amazon Seller Services has increased the authorised share capital of the company from Rs 31,000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore, and indicated a fresh capital infusion may be on the way. Both companies claim it will be their “biggest sale ever”.
According to RedSeer, e-tailers are expected to see gross sales worth $3.7 billion during the six-day sale — a growth of about 60-65% year on year. Flipkart, which opened its sale with categories like fashion, FMCG, private labels, home & furniture and beauty, said collectively, sales in the segments have surpassed previous festive season’s total business on Day 1. The number of transacting customers from tier II cities and beyond have doubled over last year on the first day of sale. The firm aims to clock 11 times more GMV sales over a usual business day during the event, sources in the know said.
Amazon said it saw the single-largest day of Prime membership sign-ups, with 66% Prime members coming from tier II and III towns. There were more new shoppers online than ever, of which over 91% came from beyond metros. Brands OnePlus, Samsung and Apple together clocked over Rs 750 crore in the first 36 hours (includes early Prime access) of sale.
Quashing talks of muted spending, Manish Tiwary, vice-president, category management at Amazon, had earlier told FE that e-commerce being small in India, “a slowdown would probably hit it the last”.
“This year we see that e-tailers have taken a very category-customised approach to drive growth across categories. Such approach will go a long way in enabling strong sales from millions of first-time shoppers as well as increase sales value to regular shoppers,” said Anil Kumar, CEO, RedSeer.
[“source=financialexpress”]
