Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra sales – all unaffected by low consumer sentiment

• Myntra and Facebook-backed Meesho sold 60 orders every second or over 5 million products in total on one day of their sale.
• The Consumer Confidence Survey, carried out by the central bank of India, is still in the negative territory.
• The impact of this reduced sentiment however isn’t as bad, especially in discretionary spends.

India’s e-commerce titans — Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra — are all hosting their mid-year sales at the moment. It might sound like a bad time as customer sentiment is low due to inflation, layoffs, increasing interest rates and more.

But the e-commerce market behaves much differently than the stock markets. Both Myntra and Facebook-backed Meesho — which is the latest entrant among the biggest e-commerce players — sold 60 orders every second or over 5 million products in total on one day of their sale.

For Myntra, it was the first day of its End of Reason sale held between June 11-16 and for Meesho, it was their one-day sale held a week before.

Amazon and Flipkart have not yet revealed the performance of their sales yet.

*While inflation and high petroleum prices are impacting everyone, consumer sentiment is not universally low. There are many categories in discretionary spending which are still having high sales. Anything with relatively high quality and reasonable pricing seems to be doing well,” N Chandramouli, founder of brand intelligence company TRA Research, too noted.

According to several experts Business Insider spoke with, the right product at the right price matters.

The Consumer Confidence Survey is still in the negative territory. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) consumer confidence index showed slight improvement to 75.9 in May, compared to 71.7 in March, but it is still in the negative.

The impact of this reduced sentiment however isn’t as bad, especially in discretionary spends.

“The consumer sentiment isn't as negatively impacted as people are projecting it to be,” Shrenik Gandhi, co-founder and CEO of digital marketing agency White Rivers Media, told Business Insider India. He noted that businesses have to come up with the right products and services at the right time, right price to attract customers.

A white space for brands

Shahan Sud, an investment banker turned VC, explained that the union of the attention recession and the impending recession will create a white space for brands that will allow them to curate their stockkeeping unit (SKU) that cater to consumers that are looking for a “value buy, but one that keeps up the fashion trends of the season”.

A previous report by ICICI Securities, published earlier this week, also noted that the discretionary companies like retail, QSRs and jewellery will be performing well for now. The low-ticket segment of staples would have the biggest impact of the negative sentiment due to their dependency on the bottom strata for incremental volumes.

Beauty, durables will be the biggest sellers in 2022

Madhur Singhal, managing partner and CEO of Praxis Global Alliance, noted that there will be significant increase in direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands selling beauty, home, kitchen, utilities, and durable goods. Besides this, even electronics and durables will also record good sales this year.

He believes that things could be much better than they are now. He noted that the sales will be soft for a few months before they pick up. Contrary to the popular opinion, he noted that the festive sales growth might be muted compared to last year as the trends of revenge buying and pent-up demand have faded away.

“I think this year’s festive season will be much better than the previous two years, with consumer spend increasing,” Chandramouli said, differing from Singhal’s opinion.

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