The festive season in India has always been a time to indulge a little more than usual. Along with the festivities and celebrations, many people also consider this period auspicious to buy and invest in new purchases.
From gold to vehicles and electronics to furniture, Indians often wait to plan their shopping around this time of the year. And the digital revolution has made it even more easier and accessible.
The last couple of months have been especially bright for merchants with exceptional rise in sales after a pandemic-caused hiatus in the past years. And if the numbers are to be believed Indians have been splurging on online shopping this festive season.
Festive season 2022 – An exponential growth in e-commerce sales
India’s e-commerce landscape has witnessed a steady and consistent growth and this festive season only boosted it further.
The online marketplaces in India reported sales worth $5.7 billion (about Rs 40,000 crore) from September 22 to 30, a 27 per cent growth compared to last year. Traders have estimated a spending of about 2.5 trillion rupees at the stores.
The number of shoppers also increased by 24 percent (y-o-y) in the first week with 75 to 80 million people shopping online. Notably, 65 percent of them were from tier 2 cities indicating the massive digital penetration outside of the metros.
With the first phase of festive sales concluding, e-commerce platforms clocked in close to 5.4X growth in their daily sales while shipment volumes grew almost 3 times.
How did online marketplaces perform?
Among marketplaces the Flipkart Group led the market with a whooping 62 per cent market share in GMV. There were 35 million app downloads close to their annual Big Billion Day Sale bringing in 4 million first-time customers.
Amazon was successful in reaching beyond the cities to capture new audiences and saw more than 80% of first-time customers from smaller towns during its Great Indian Festival Sale.
Meesho observed a 68% jump in its orders from last year and close to 3.4 crore orders were placed during the Meesho Mega Blockbuster sale that happened in the last week of September.
Which categories dominated the festive sales?
Mobile phones emerged as the most shopped product with 41 per cent contribution in gross merchandise value (GMV) and close to 56,000 mobile handsets being sold every hour.
Fashion as a segment contributed to 20 percent of GMV displaying a growth of 48 percent year on year.
Moreover, most-recent numbers released by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), stated that UPI processed 7.3 billion transactions in October equalling Rs 12.11 trillion, a record high in the value of transactions.
How did Paytm Payment Gateway help merchants with the festive sales?
Fintech solutions have been the backbone of seamless transactions and payment gateways are instrumental in managing the large volume of transactions during these high-traffic periods.
Paytm Payment Gateway was the preferred partner of hundreds of e-commerce businesses of every size and scale and helped merchants with uninterrupted transactions throughout the peak traffic period.
When initiating a payment, customers usually face issues of complex checkout process, imperfect integrations, redirections and so on leading to abandonment of the cart and purchase. Such problems can prove highly detrimental during the festive season when there is a considerable increase in the number of buyers.
Paytm Payment Gateway which is built to handle a large scale of transactions and high peak loads with a capability of processing upto 3000 TPS ensured that the festive surge was smooth and hassle-free for merchants. With 99.99% uptime it is one of India’s most reliable and robust payment gateways.
Conclusion
An increase in disposable incomes, easy internet access and simplified online transactions have resulted in an aggressive e-commerce growth. Add to that the festive seasons and annual sales lead to an upswing in purchases.
This is probably the best time for a business to be online – there are enormous opportunities, growing consumer intent and the availability of robust technology to support an e-commerce venture.
Gear up for the upcoming events and stay prepared for the continued surge in e-commerce sales by partnering with the right payment solution for your online store.
