With the festive season approaching, e-commerce players are lining up bountiful offers for online shoppers. According to the latest survey by trade body, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), the festive period will register record sales, revenues, and the highest ever purchase rate per minute for e-commerce giants.

The festive spend by online shoppers is likely to increase by 25 per cent to Rs 25,000 crore this year from Rs 20,000 crore last year, the study revealed. However, it maintained a cautious stand on the stock and inventory management needed to meet the sharp surge in demand over the short period of time.

Assocham interacted with about 2,500 working professionals (almost equal number of male/ female respondents) in the age group of 25-40 years from diverse sectors from automobiles to BFSI, IT and media and entertainment, among others.

"This is expected to be the busiest festive season for e-commerce companies as Indian consumers are likely to spend up to Rs 25,000 crore and more as against over Rs 20,000 crore spent in the festive season last year, thereby, registering about 25 per cent growth,” said D S Rawat, Secretary-General of Assocham, while releasing the findings of the chamber’s survey-cum-analysis.

The survey was carried out during the course of the past fortnight across 10 cities -- Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai -- to ascertain customers’ shopping plans for the upcoming festive season.

The products expected to be in demand include apparel, appliances, cosmetics, jewellery, perfumes, shoes and electronic items such as mobiles, laptops, televisions and portable media players.

"Besides introduction of premium services such as free shipping and extended return period, the increased use of high-speed Internet on smartphones is likely to boost online shopping this festive season and help e-tailers register profits after a dull first half of this year," he added.

"About 60 per cent of the respondents said they were ready with their shopping lists and would prefer online shopping over standing long hours in store aisles, while most of the remaining opted for shopping at physical brick and mortar outlets," the survey conducted by the Assocham Social Development Foundation, stated.

The study also suggested gearing up to counter various challenges related to logistics, influx of visitors and avoid losing customers due to technical issues by taking all precautionary measures beforehand such as investing in a larger server or cloud hosting service.

E-tailers must ensure that stock levels are high, and that delivery dates are correct as customers want to be sure of the latest date and time they can order and be certain it will arrive in time.

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