Is Indian market ready for festivals during covid19?
Conventional festival shopping
Festivals are soul of Indian economy. Many businesses make their sales planning specifically for festive occasions. India has many different religions, regions, languages. As per each region and religion wise, there are festivals. Traditionally, every festival is a kind of celebration. It requires preparation and shopping. Indian people basically follows brick-and-morter retail marketing. Most of the market places are crowded during festivals. Diwali, Dussehra, Christmas, Eid are most popular festivals amongst all. Hindu festivals are celebrated almost every month, right from Sankranti , Holi till Diwali.
This year due to Covid-19 many businesses got affected due to elongated lockdown. It has highly affected on Indian economy. Somehow the shops started opening, malls are open, traditional market places are open. But customers are still scared of social gatherings. Poorly maintained social distancing and safety precautions are making this shopping places more vulnerable.
How online marketplaces are preparing for it?
Online marketplaces are always prepared for festive occasions. They also got affected due to Covid-19 lockdown. But their recovery is faster than others. The best part of their growth is, customers are sitting at home and expecting a safe delivery. This is keeping them at pace. They are generating more revenue than regular. Amazon’s Great Indian Festival is the most earning season. This year’s 1st day of sale, was 750 Cr. They are giving good discounts and more over safe deliveries.
How much do online marketplaces earn?
Marketplaces have their market share distributed mostly amongst the most popular marketplaces as Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra.
The industries which are most shopped online are Mobiles, Electronics and appliances.
Fashion industry is also having biggest share, clothing, accessories, watch, leather accessories. Not only for women shoppers, but also for men shoppers, it is most popular.
Now retail, supermarkets or grocery is also shopped online even by home makers.
Statistics for amazon/ flipkart for shopping?
The 2 big giants in this competition are Amazon and Flipkart. The festival season is most earning season for such marketplaces, as they are offering big discounts and also their sale elongates for longer period. In 2019 their total earing was crossing 19000Cr.
A report reveals the festive sales earned e-tailers a whooping $3 billion with a large chunk of customers from Tier-2 cities or Bharat
As festive sales hosted by the e-commerce sector ended last week, the e-tailers in India achieved a record $3 billion (about Rs 19,000 crore) of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) during the period (September 29-October 4), as per a report by consulting firm RedSeer.
Massively led by Amazon and Flipkart, the e-tailers’ year-on-year growth during the 6-day sale was 30%, said the report, which had predicted a 60-65% growth with a $3.7 billion GMV.
Walmart-owned Flipkart surpassed the Amazon’s GMV share this year holding a 60-62% standalone GMV share during the festive sales and 63% share if other entities are included (Myntra and Jabong), said the report. Meanwhile, Amazon’s GMV year-on-year growth was 22% , and its volume growth rate year-on-year was
How many smartphone users overall?
There is a consistent growth in smartphone users in India every year. Not only urban areas but rural parts of India is also having growing numbers of smartphone users.
It has become a trend to search a product online and order it. Compare it’s pricing and get the deliveries at home/ office.
Which is a good and safer replacement for the conventional shopping.
This encourages more and more of eCommerce development.
What problems will be faced by Indian people during festival shopping?
Even though Amazon, Flipkart offers good discounts, people have to buy local stuff from local markets only. Taken into consideration, festival as a challenge during Covid-19 , it is difficult to do festival shopping. Social distancing, masks, unknown threats near-by in market if not taken into account, festival shopping is a probable damage to controlled Corona statistics in India
Why Indian business does not plan for it? What do they scared of?
Most of the Indian businesses or brands still not preparing for their online store.
There are number of reasons or queries by owners:
- Who will manage content?
- Who will spend on product photos
- Our product rates are not compatible with online marketplaces
- We don’t have technical staff, no space to accommodate new staff for ecommerce
- We can not afford to maintain eCommerce, as there is no much margin
- Who will manage deliveries?
- How will keep track of stock inventory of online store?
- Can we merge our existing ERP/ CRM with eCommerce?
- What if I get order, where I don’t provide service?
- Who will keep track of growing number of customers?
- What if no one will visit my online store?
- What will happen when the customer will place order in odd time?
- How do we stock for online store? How will we come to know which product to keep available in stock?
ACESnWS offers a comprehensive solution on all these questions as managed eCommerce solution.
