Festive Season Sale 2023: Early trends estimate strong sales numbers for e-commerce companies

Festive Season Sale 2023: The Festive cheer in India has brought strong sales number for e-commerce companies. With festive season sale, the firms were looking at an upward tick as consumer sentiment remains upbeat and with smaller sellers as well spending more on marketing

E-commerce Firms' GMV

Redseer had estimated that the gross merchandise value (GMV) of e-commerce companies will grow by 20% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to touch Rs 90,000 crore this festive season even before the flagship sales event went live.

Also Read: Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale 2023 from Oct 8: Early access for Prime members; check deals on offer

Electronics - Season Winner

The demand for Electronics and Appliances was the biggest this year. As per Unicommerce, a business-to-business (B2B) company, sales data from just October 7 and 8 showed that order volumes on e-commerce companies have already grown by over 15% on a YoY basis and have more legs. Unicommerce sells software to retailers such as Myntra and several others.

“Given that this year’s festive season sale started during the shraad cycle, which was not the case in 2022, we can expect a further spike in numbers during the second leg of the season’s sale," Unicommerce told Moneycontrol.

One another major reason for the steep sale of electronics is their availability at discounted rates. However, Moneycontrol quoted a Consumer behaviour expert and said that the interest on these two categories has brought down the demand for products in other categories.

“While it's too soon to draw any definitive conclusions, early data suggests that consumers are ready to splurge on big-ticket items…Since customers are focused on high-priced items with better pricing…spending on other categories was discouraged,” Satish Meena, advisor to Datum Intelligence, a market research firm focused on consumer technology told Moneycontrol.

He further added that this festive season electronics, smartphones, TVs and appliances all saw sales growing anywhere between 4X and 7X on a YoY basis but other categories did not grow as much. He also said that the while Clothing, Grocery and Health & Beauty all saw a modest growth during the initial days of the festive season this growth was lower than expected.

“Clothing, Grocery and Health & Beauty all grew saw a modest jump of 1.5-2.5X only...While there was modest growth during the initial days of the festive season, this growth was lower than expected,” Meena told Moneycontrol.

Health and Beauty Outperform

Some industry players believe that health and beauty outperform the other categories by growing on a YoY basis.

“On an opening day, categories like Beauty & Personal Care (BPC) and Jewelry recorded over 100 percent growth in demand when compared to the same period last year,” Neha Wali, Head of Revenue and Growth, Myntra told Moneycontrol.

Wali also added that unlike last year, the firm has gained consumers from different parts of the country this year and that about 45% of Myntra’s total orders came from non-metro cities this festive season so far.

Firms are also tapping new customers by expanding to more contemporary geographies beyond the top metro cities. This even while, those from Tier 2 and beyond regions typically spend less than their peers in the top metro cities.