Festival season generates highest-ever monthly sales for Indian e-commerce at $3.2 B

Diwali, and the weeks leading to it, are the peak season for retail sales in India. Both offline and online players go all out in marketing, spending crores of rupees in advertisements and introducing numerous offers and discounts.

According to a recent study by consumer internet market research firm RedSeer Consulting, e-tailers in India achieved the highest-ever monthly sales over the course of this festival month from September 20 to October 19, 2017. The same firm had earlier released a report that said Flipkart was the leader in festival season sales with a market share of 58 percent versus Amazon’s 26 percent.

The festival month 2017 included three mega sale events, along with the business as usual days. RedSeer sales estimates for each period are as below-

• Mega-event 1 (September 20 to 24, 2017)- $1.5 billion generated by industry
• Mega-event 2 (October 4 to 8, 2017)- $500 million to $600 million generated by industry
• Mega-event 3 (From October 14 until now)- $600 million generated by industry driven by strong sales of electronic devices and appliances
• Business as usual (non-sale days) from September 20 to October 19- $500 million generated by industry

Altogether, online retailers generated a total of $3.2 billion in sales (Rs 19,000 crore) in the 30-day festival month. To compare, this is 45% higher than the 2016 festival month (October 1 to 31, 2016) which generated $2.2 billion of sales for the industry.

The above data is captured via RedSeer’s Integrated Research Approach which includes 9000+ consumer surveys, 1000+ seller interactions, tie-ups with deals websites to capture 100,000+ online data points, and broader interactions with third party logistics ecosystem.

The report also said that the reason for strong sales performance in the 2017 sale month was higher awareness of sales among the online population, Jio’s influence which has increased internet penetration and online shoppers, and better and more targeted selection and offers (compared with 2016). Add to this, various exclusive offers and affordability schemes like EMIs and exchange programmes, and overall shopping and delivery experience has also improved.

The report added that due to the above reasons, there have been limited cases of shopper fatigue despite frequent sales events.