October was a good month for Flipkart, despite the controversy surrounding its Big Billion Day sale. The e-commerce company clocked over 8 million shipments last month; 3 million more than its usual 5 million shipments a month. Also, it added 2 million registered users in October, taking the total number to 28 million. Average visits to the portal shot up to 10 million from 6 million in September.
Now, here's a quick guessing game. What did people buy online during this festive season? Clothes? Electronics goods? Mobile phones? If these were your guesses, you are probably right. But that's not all what they purchased. They also bought packets of Kanpur's famous Thaggu ke Laddus, Lonavala chikki and Agra's famous pan pethas and other sweets online, according to Radhika Ghai Aggarwal, co-founder and chief marketing officer of ShopClues.com, an online marketplace on which 75,000 merchants from all over India sell 10.5 million products.
Rooted to local needs
"Unlike the big players (like Flipkart and Snapdeal), which are more like malls and focus on big-ticket items like electronic goods, we are more like a typical Indian marketplace," says Aggarwal. So, during Diwali, the portal sold everything from disco Diwali lights to local sweets to gifting items like silver coins embedded with images of Ganesha and Lakshmi. And the bestseller was? "A gold-plated set of playing cards," says Aggarwal.
Overall, ShopClues saw orders peaking to about 1,30,000 per month in September and October from about 75,000 per month during the rest of the year. Some 70% of ShopClues's orders come from Tier II and III cities. As a result, the buying patterns are also different. For instance, one of the topselling cellphone models on the portal is a brand called Josh, a dual-SIM handset that costs Rs 999.
Selling as much local merchandise as possible seems to the mantra for other e-tailers too. Paytm, a two-and-a-half-year-old Noida based start-up, started as a portal offering mobile recharging and facilitating utility bill payments. Soon, the company realized that customers had spare cash lying around in their online wallets, which it calls Paytm Cash. The sums varied between Rs 400 and Rs 700.
So, Paytm started selling other stuff: jeans, t-shirts and USBs, among others. "During Diwali, we introduced local sweets, which did pretty well. We also sold lights and some seasonal clothing like ghagra cholis. USB sales also went up," says Pratyush Prasanna, vice-president at Paytm. The portal has 20 million registered users and six lakh orders a day.
Furniture e-tailer Pepperfry launched its first ever television commercial in late September to coincide with the festive season. Pepperfry chief executive Ambareesh Murty says business is up 70% month on month. "In general, during the second half of the year, people tend to buy more of everything from home furnishing to FMCG goods. There is a positive attitude towards consumption," says Murty. "People spend more on their homes — from getting them painted to buying new furniture. In October, our business has gone through the roof," he adds.
A mixed bag for some
For some, the festive season is a mixed bag. Take Mumbai-based grocery e-tailer Local-Banya, for instance. "People tend to travel during this time and take a few days off. As a result, some amount of grocery shopping comes down," says Amit Bhartiya, cofounder of LocalBanya. "At the same time, there is an uptick in gifting-related shopping. The ease of online shopping makes the process of shopping for gifts, especially sweet or chocolate hampers, a lot easier," adds Bhartiya.
Lingerie e-tailer Zivame's sales peak in February, around Valentine's Day. But Diwali brings its own joy. "The category does well all year round but there is a spike around the festive season as people usually tend to buy apparel," says Richa Kar, co-founder and chief executive of Zivame.com, adding that sales are up 40% this season.
Founders of such niche verticals have a special 'thank you' for the big boys of e-commerce. "Thanks to some of the big advertising spends of large e-tailers, consumer awareness and willingness to shop online has increased. It has helped everybody that the likes of Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal of the world spend as much as they have in publicity," says a founder of an e-commerce vertical who preferred to be off-record on this one. Over to the next Big Billion Day sale.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=Zivame.com,ShopClues.com,LocalBanya,Amazon
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