E-commerce sales grow 25% during festive season: Report

Online retailers saw a 25% year-on-year growth in gross merchandise value (GMV) during the festive month this year, according to a report by market research company Redseer Strategy Consultants.

While e-taliers sold goods worth ₹76,000 crore during the festive month, it was lower than Redseer's pre-sale estimate of ₹83,000 crore.

E-commerce platforms held their festive sale during the one-month period between September 22 and October 23 this year. E-marketplaces usually hold up to four sales leading to the festival of Diwali. The first of these sales is usually the largest and usually accounts for more than 50-60% of the festive month.

"Democratisation of categories continued this year as well, with lower order value items growing faster than mobiles and electronics. While mobiles and electronics continue to dominate category share, home and kitchen, groceries and beauty, personal care items were the fastest growing categories. Grocery grew almost twice as much as the last year festival salel," says Sanjay Kothari, associate partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants.

Fashion led the growth especially in the Tier-2 market, led by unbranded fashion with one in every five orders having a Kurti or Saree in the basket.

Around 115 -125 million shoppers placed orders across platforms in the festive month. The average spend per online shopper remained flat with an increase in contribution of fashion and other long-tail categories, the report says.

Festive period sales has largely become a Tier 2 phenomenon with 64% of shoppers coming from Tier 2-plus cities, according to Redseer. Customers outside this demographic generally have a more democratic spending pattern through the year.

Meanwhile, Walmart-owned Flipkart saw more than 60% of its customers coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. "Flipkart had a great quarter, with strong customer response to our Big Billion Days event, which moved forward into Q3 this year from Q4 last year," John David Rainey, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Walmart, said in an analyst call.

"E-commerce sales on a constant currency basis were exceptionally strong, up 46% in the quarter. The earlier timing of Flipkart's Big Billion Days event was also a benefit to sales results," Rainey said, adding that the e-commerce platform had over 1 billion visits during the eight-day event.

Walmart saw a 13.3% jump in international sales in the quarter ended September, led by e-commerce major Flipkart's Big Billion Days sale event. The world's largest retailer's international revenue rose to $26.8 billion in constant-currency terms, aided by Flipkart and its Mexican subsidiary Walmex, Fortune India reported on Wednesday.