Etailers will ensure you have a great time shopping this Diwali!

As the countdown for Diwali has already begun, India’s leading eCommerce industry is all set to organise attractive online sale to lure e-shoppers this festive season.

As per an Economic Times report, industry majors like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal along with several small start-ups are expected to burn Rs 2,000 crore to attract consumers till the festive season ends.

Their planning is not limited to this, as celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, along with other stars will join the bandwagon to promote these online marketplaces on various social media platforms. If sources are to be believed, eCommerce companies had spent Rs 1,300 crore just on marketing and promotion during the same time in 2014.

While top firms took the lead last year; this year, we might welcome small start-ups as well.

As per the media planner, until last year, online retailers had been spending 60% of their marketing budget for the festival season on television marketing. But this year, just about 35% is expected to go to television for marketing purpose.

Ashish Jhalani, founder of eTailing India & Indian School of eBusiness (ISeB), said that his company tracked around 700 eCommerce firms of different scale and size in 2014. This year, the number has grown to more than 1,700, which includes small and big players, and points to market expansion, he said.

A growing number of start-ups are also advertising to showcase their offerings and leave an impact on consumers. According to top media buying firms, the heavily-funded online start-ups are the ones splurging without watching returns on investment.

"Unlike the general market sentiment of slump, advertising in media is seeing a significant up-swing. Almost all advertising (inventory) has been blocked in the October-December quarter," said Navin Khemka, managing partner (north and east region) at Group Mowned media buying firm Maxus, which represents Hero MotoCorp and Paytm.

Lakshmi Narasimhan, chief growth officer at GroupM-South Asia, said, "A lot has to do with emerging categories in the online space. Online advertisers are neutralising losses of traditional advertisers and leading to huge spurt in demand. Retail sector (ecommerce plus brick and mortar) will be about 8-9%. The split is more or less equal between ecommerce and retailers."

A large corrugated boxes manufacturer, which supplies packaging material for Flipkart as well as Amazon, informed that the companies have just doubled the order as compared to last Diwali.

Aman Jain, founder of cash-back site Go-Paisa said that a leading eCommerce firm has doubled the commissions for coupon companies and cash-back sites from 8% in August to 16% to woo more and more mobile customers.

Gurgaon-based logistics company GoJavas, which counts Snapdeal, Jabong and Lenskart among clients, is enhancing its automation. By September, an automatic sorting system that can process up to 1.5 lakh packages daily will be in place. "We expect volumes to touch two to three times of normal pre-festive season," said Vijay Ghadge, chief operating officer at GoJavas.

Srini Murthy, senior vice-president for marketing at Snapdeal, said, this year his company will focus on customer experience. "We will try to make sure we give the best offers but the new news for the consumer will be great delivery experience and many more brands versus last year," he added.