Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart to rake in the moolah this Diwali!

There is at least one sector that is expecting to rake in the moolah during this Diwali! And there are no prices for guessing that it is the eCommerce. With Flipkart’s week long Big Billion Day and Snapdeal’s Dil ki Deal locking horns to woo more online shoppers, the online retail industry is expected to clock in at least 45% more sales in this festive year.

“Being wooed by heavy discounts and combo offers, the consumers are expected to splurge about Rs 52,000 crore during this season, beginning with Navratras, Durga Puja, Dussehra, Diwali and Christmas,” said DS Rawat, general secretary of ASSOCHAM.

While it isn’t a rocket science to understand that online shopping has gone up substantially over the past few years, interestingly, the shopping experience has definitely shifted from desktop to mobiles.

“The customer is connected 24x7 through their smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices, which has led to a gradual evolution of e-commerce into mobile commerce. Also, there is an issue of convenience which also leads to impulsive buying,” added Rawat.

According to market estimates, brands are expected to register a whopping five-fold increase in revenues over last year through online retail. Rawat noted that around 55% of consumers spend on buying cloths and goods in India between September and December during the festival season that includes Dussehra, Diwali and Christmas.

“The merchandise being sold aggressively through online platforms include mobile phones, electronics, designer furniture, home decorations, clothes, accessories, jewellery, footwear etc. The big brands are in tie up with popular e-commerce retailers and hard selling through full page advertisements, internet and television,” he averred.

It should be noted that in the last few years, online retail stores have been clocking in higher sales than their offline counterpart. While the traffic on these websites have been surging, footfalls in popular malls have gone down massively.

Popular online stores such as Snapdeal, Myntra, Flipkart, Jabong and Amazon have doled out massive discounts and schemes on products, which has attracted a large number of consumers to these websites.

Abhinav Choudhary, cofounder of Smartprix.com, a price comparison website noted that his website had seen over 40% growth in traffic for price comparison of products available on Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal on day one of this festival season. While this is a whopping 300% increase in traffic on the first of the festival season over last year for the website, etailers such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal recorded a massive 200% increase in the traffic.

Image Credit: Indiatimes.com